Ithonidae

Ithonidae, commonly called moth lacewings and giant lacewings, is a small family of winged insects of the insect order Neuroptera. The family contains a total of ten living genera, and over a dozen extinct genera described from fossils. The modern Ithonids have a notably disjunct distribution, while the extinct genera had a more global range. The family is considered one of the most primitive living neuropteran families. The family has been expanded twice, first to include the genus Rapisma, formerly placed in the monotypic family Rapismatidae, and then in 2010 to include the genera that had been placed into the family Polystoechotidae. Both Rapismatidae and Polystoechotidae have been shown to nest into Ithonidae sensu lato. The larvae of ithonids are grub-like, subterranean and likely phytophagous.

Ithonidae

Kesavamurthy N · 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
Also called
moth lacewingPBDB
Sits inside
IthonoideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 164 million years on record.

The record covers at least 201.4 Mya to 37 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 205.7 Mya to 33.9 Mya.

Late Triassic — about 2 of 86 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 13 of 86 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 4 of 86 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 11 of 86 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 11 of 86 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 2 of 86 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 86 occurrencesEocene — about 43 of 86 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 86 occurrences209–203 Mya — about 1 occurrence203–197 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences185–179 Mya — about 13 occurrences179–173 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences167–161 Mya — about 4 occurrences161–156 Mya — about 6 occurrences156–150 Mya — about 4 occurrences150–144 Mya — about 1 occurrence144–138 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences132–126 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126–120 Mya — about 6 occurrences120–114 Mya — about 4 occurrences114–108 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences102–96 Mya — about 1 occurrence96–90 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences60–54 Mya — about 9 occurrences54–48 Mya — about 31 occurrences48–42 Mya — about 1 occurrence42–36 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences36–30 Mya — about 1 occurrence201.4 Mya37 Mya209 Mya30 Mya

86 occurrences of Ithonidae on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

86 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.

Found in

19 formations

Fur — 56.89°N, 8.73°EFur — 56.89°N, 8.75°EFur — 56.95°N, 8.88°EFur — 56.92°N, 8.92°EFur — 57.02°N, 8.99°EKlondike Mountain — 48.66°N, 118.75°WDaohugou — 41.32°N, 119.24°EPosidonia Shale — 52.36°N, 10.75°EPosidonia Shale — 52.31°N, 10.62°EPosidonia Shale — 52.27°N, 10.68°ETranquille — 50.13°N, 120.51°WYixian — 41.62°N, 120.83°EKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°ECrato — 7.13°S, 39.70°WPosidonienschiefer — 52.27°N, 10.68°ESinuiju — 40.08°N, 124.42°EFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WSulyukta — 40.03°N, 70.50°ELilstock — 52.06°N, 2.14°WCotham — 51.60°N, 2.63°WWeald Clay — 51.10°N, 0.45°WAllenby — 49.45°N, 120.59°WJiulongshan — 40.89°N, 117.61°EØlst — 56.84°N, 9.00°ESharteg — 44.14°N, 95.77°E

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The named rock units Ithonidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 9 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Ithonidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Ithonidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

2,123 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 54 sites for Ithonidae, 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

35 references

Each of the 86 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. 23 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 Ithonidae

Credit
Kesavamurthy N
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ithonidae 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 itIthonoidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Newman 1853