Hodotermitidae

The Hodotermitidae are a basal Old World family of termites known as the harvester termites. They are distinguished by the serrated inner edge of their mandibles, and their functional compound eyes which are present in all castes. They forage for grass at night and during daylight hours, and the pigmented workers are often observed outside the nest. Their range includes the deserts and savannas of Africa, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia. Their English name refers to their habit of collecting grass, which is not unique to the family however.

Hodotermitidae

Uncredited · 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
TeletisopteraPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 20 million years on record.

The record covers at least 27.3 Mya to 7.246 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 33.9 Mya to 3.6 Mya.

Eocene — about 0 of 3 occurrencesOligocene — about 1 of 3 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 2 of 3 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 3 occurrences35–33 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences33–32 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences32–31 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences31–30 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences30–29 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10–9.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.3–8.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.2–7.2 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences7.2–6.1 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences6.1–5.1 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences5.1–4.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.0–3.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences27.3 Mya7.246 Mya34.5 Mya3 Mya

3 occurrences of Hodotermitidae on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

3 occurrences

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. More on what this infers.

Hodotermitidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Hodotermitidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

131 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Hodotermitidae, and this reads all of them. 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

3 references

Each of the 3 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Hodotermitidae

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Hodotermitidae 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

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 itTeletisoptera through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Desneux 1904)