Lepidoptera

Lepidoptera or lepidopterans are an order of winged insects which include butterflies and moths. About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera have been described, representing 8.6% of the total described species of living organisms, making it the second largest insect order with 126 families and 46 superfamilies, and one of the most widespread and widely recognizable insect orders in the world.

Lepidoptera

Charles J. Sharp · 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
mothPBDB
Sits inside
StellopteraPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 201 million years on record.

The record covers at least 201.4 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 205.7 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Triassic — about 2 of 406 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 6 of 406 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 8 of 406 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 22 of 406 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 18 of 406 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 40 of 406 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 406 occurrencesEocene — about 176 of 406 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 31 of 406 occurrencesMiocene — about 60 of 406 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 15 of 406 occurrencesPleistocene — about 22 of 406 occurrences210–203 Mya — about 1 occurrence203–196 Mya — about 3 occurrences196–189 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences189–182 Mya — about 3 occurrences168–161 Mya — about 9 occurrences161–154 Mya — about 14 occurrences154–147 Mya — about 5 occurrences147–140 Mya — about 2 occurrences126–119 Mya — about 5 occurrences119–112 Mya — about 12 occurrences112–105 Mya — about 1 occurrence105–98 Mya — about 12 occurrences98–91 Mya — about 23 occurrences91–84 Mya — about 3 occurrences84–77 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences77–70 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences70–63 Mya — about 1 occurrence63–56 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences56–49 Mya — about 5 occurrences49–42 Mya — about 5 occurrences42–35 Mya — about 119 occurrences35–28 Mya — about 57 occurrences28–21 Mya — about 23 occurrences21–14 Mya — about 28 occurrences14–7.0 Mya — about 28 occurrences7.0–0 Mya — about 46 occurrences201.4 Mya11.7 ka210 Mya0 Mya

406 occurrences of Lepidoptera on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

406 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

51 formations

Bouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WDaohugou — 41.32°N, 119.24°ENiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°EGreen River — 39.53°N, 107.78°WGreen River — 39.46°N, 108.08°WGreen River — 39.64°N, 108.76°WTremembé — 22.95°S, 45.54°WTremembé — 23.01°S, 45.58°WCrato — 7.13°S, 39.70°WThermalsinterkalk — 48.41°N, 9.55°ECampagne-Calavon — 43.85°N, 5.58°EKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°EUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°EKaragan — 45.05°N, 42.32°EGlushkovo — 51.92°N, 117.62°EGlushkovo — 51.71°N, 116.93°ERandeck Maar — 48.57°N, 9.53°ESaijo — 34.38°N, 132.72°EPeruc-Korycany — 50.12°N, 14.77°EPeruc-Korycany — 50.44°N, 14.63°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°ERott — 50.60°N, 7.25°EShanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°ELa Toca — 19.55°N, 70.61°WKap København — 82.47°N, 23.66°WKap København — 82.45°N, 24.10°WMiyajima — 36.98°N, 139.82°ENogami — 33.21°N, 131.15°EMizozono — 31.98°N, 130.74°EMazantic Shale — 17.15°N, 92.70°W

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The named rock units Lepidoptera has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 27 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 229 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Lepidoptera and its relatives

Eocene

Where Lepidoptera and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

7,538 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 193 sites for Lepidoptera, and this reads all 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

168 references

Each of the 406 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. 156 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 Lepidoptera

Credit
Charles J. Sharp
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itStelloptera through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758