Hexapoda
The subphylum Hexapoda or hexapods comprises the largest clade of arthropods and includes most of the extant arthropod species. It includes the crown group class Insecta, as well as the much smaller class Entognatha, which includes three classes of wingless arthropods that were once considered insects: Collembola (springtails), Protura (coneheads) and Diplura. The insects and springtails are very abundant and are some of the most important pollinators, basal consumers, scavengers/detritivores and micropredators in terrestrial environments.

NobbiP · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- LabiocaridaPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Time the record covers
At least 323 million years on record.
The record covers at least 323.6 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 326.9 Mya to 0 Mya.
12,000+ occurrences of Hexapoda on record. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
12,000 occurrences read- Carboniferous5%
- Permian16%
- Early Triassicunder 1%
- Middle Triassic4%
- Late Triassic4%
- Early Jurassic8%
- Middle Jurassic1%
- Late Jurassic9%
- Early Cretaceous12%
- Late Cretaceous6%
- Paleocene2%
- Eocene17%
- Oligocene7%
- Miocene8%
- Plioceneunder 1%
- Pleistoceneunder 1%
- Holoceneunder 1%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. The read hit its cap, so every figure above is a floor and the shares are of the occurrences read. More on what this infers.
Found in
at least 429 formations
- Karabastau Formation591
- Wellington Formation · Sumner Group534
- Florissant Formation520
- Posidonia Shale Formation464
- Madygen Formation374
- Green River Formation308
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The named rock units Hexapoda has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. The read hit its cap, so each count is a floor. 405 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 2,592 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
6,660 taxa- Coleoptera23 sites
- Insecta22 sites
- Buratina19 sites
- Bivalvia11 sites
- Aves10 sites
- Gastropoda10 sites
- Osteichthyes10 sites
- Serpula9 sites
- Anura8 sites
- Brachiopoda8 sites
- Theropoda8 sites
- Archirhyphus asiaticus7 sites
- Berenicea7 sites
- Blattodea7 sites
- Buratina lusitanica7 sites
- Cribrospongia7 sites
- Plantae7 sites
- Cordaites6 sites
- Crania6 sites
- Craticularia6 sites
- Cribrospongia reticulata6 sites
- Crocodylia6 sites
- Cypellia rugosa6 sites
- Kararhynchus occiduus6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records at least 536 sites for Hexapoda, and this reads 240 of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
at least 1,909 references- Les insectes fossiles des terrains oligocènes de France527
- Die Insektenfauna des Ostniedersachsischen Oberen Lias448
- The Tertiary Insects of North America434
- Mezozoiskie zhestkokryiye164
- Heer, 1853159
- Die Insekten der "Plattigen Steinmergels" von Brunstatt153
- Hymenoptera Apocrita of Mesozoic148
- Heer, 1847131
- Die Trichopteren des baltischen Bernsteins122
- Heer, 1849121
- Filogeniya ortopteroidnykh nasekomykh115
- Piton, 1940104
Each of the 12,000 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. That read hit its cap, so each count is a floor. 1,897 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Hexapoda
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- NobbiP
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Hexapoda was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Hexapoda”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itLabiocarida through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Latreille 1825)