Libellulidae

The chasers, darters, skimmers, and perchers and their relatives form the Libellulidae, the largest family of dragonflies. It is sometimes considered to contain the Corduliidae as the subfamily Corduliinae and the Macromiidae as the subfamily Macromiinae. Even if these are excluded, there remains a family of over 1000 species. With nearly worldwide distribution, these are the most commonly encountered dragonflies.

Libellulidae

Muhammad Mahdi Karim · GFDL 1.2 · 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
common skimmerPBDB
Sits inside
LibelluloideaPBDB
Diet
carnivore, insectivorePBDB, for Odonata
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Odonata
Motility
fast-movingPBDB, for Odonata
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Odonata
Environment
freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Odonata

Time the record covers

At least 87 million years on record.

The record covers at least 89.8 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 93.9 Mya to 1.4 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 1 of 90 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 90 occurrencesEocene — about 4 of 90 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 22 of 90 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 59 of 90 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 3 of 90 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1 of 90 occurrences96–93 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences93–89 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences57–54 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences54–51 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences51–48 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences48–45 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences45–41 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences41–38 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences38–35 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences35–32 Mya — about 2 occurrences32–29 Mya — about 2 occurrences29–26 Mya — about 8 occurrences26–22 Mya — about 13 occurrences22–19 Mya — about 7 occurrences19–16 Mya — about 13 occurrences16–13 Mya — about 3 occurrences13–9.6 Mya — about 8 occurrences9.6–6.4 Mya — about 14 occurrences6.4–3.2 Mya — about 15 occurrences3.2–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences89.8 Mya2.58 Mya96 Mya0 Mya

90 occurrences of Libellulidae 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

90 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

20 formations

Gessoso-solfifera — 43.90°N, 12.92°ENiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°ECypris — 50.16°N, 12.69°ECypris — 50.13°N, 12.52°ECypris — 50.17°N, 12.64°EBarstow — 34.95°N, 116.83°WBarstow — 34.94°N, 116.83°WRott — 50.75°N, 7.26°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°EGreen River — 41.56°N, 109.55°WGreen River — 39.64°N, 108.76°WHydrobienkalk — 50.04°N, 8.24°EKaragan — 45.05°N, 42.32°EDol — 46.24°N, 14.57°EUpper Freshwater Molasse — 48.15°N, 9.88°EUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°ERita Blanca — 35.71°N, 102.45°WCampagne-Calavon — 43.85°N, 5.58°EMost — 50.42°N, 13.36°ERajdanda — 23.42°N, 84.13°ERandeck Maar — 48.57°N, 9.53°EEnspel — 50.61°N, 7.89°EMoler — 56.84°N, 9.00°EBembridge Marls — 50.74°N, 1.35°WWiesbaden — 49.97°N, 8.30°E

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The named rock units Libellulidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 34 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Libellulidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Libellulidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

1,331 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 57 sites for Libellulidae, 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

47 references

Each of the 90 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. 35 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 Libellulidae

Credit
Muhammad Mahdi Karim
Licence
GFDL 1.2
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 itLibelluloidea through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Rambur 1842