Lucanidae

Stag beetles compose the family Lucanidae. It has about 1,200 species of beetles in four subfamilies. Some species grow to over 12 centimetres, but most to about 5 cm (2 in).

Lucanidae

fir0002 flagstaffotos [at] gmail.com Canon 20D + Sigma 150mm f/2.8 + Canon MT 24-EX · 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
stag beetlePBDB
Sits inside
ScarabaeoideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 154 million years on record.

The record covers at least 154.8 Mya to 774 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 165.3 Mya to 129 ka.

Middle Jurassic — about 0 of 53 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 2 of 53 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 16 of 53 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 14 of 53 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 53 occurrencesEocene — about 14 of 53 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 2 of 53 occurrencesMiocene — about 2 of 53 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 53 occurrencesPleistocene — about 3 of 53 occurrences169–163 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences163–157 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences157–152 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences152–146 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences146–141 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences129–124 Mya — about 5 occurrences124–118 Mya — about 9 occurrences118–112 Mya — about 2 occurrences101–96 Mya — about 10 occurrences96–90 Mya — about 4 occurrences90–84 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences51–45 Mya — about 3 occurrences45–39 Mya — about 3 occurrences39–34 Mya — about 8 occurrences28–22 Mya — about 2 occurrences22–17 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences17–11 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences11–5.6 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences5.6–0 Mya — about 3 occurrences154.8 Mya774 ka169 Mya0 Mya

53 occurrences of Lucanidae on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. 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

53 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

11 formations

Yixian — 41.62°N, 120.83°EYixian — 41.42°N, 118.97°EYixian — 41.16°N, 119.29°EYixian — 41.19°N, 119.21°EEifel — 50.11°N, 6.82°EMessel — 49.93°N, 8.75°EArgun — 51.71°N, 113.39°EHighbury Silts and Sands — 51.56°N, 0.06°WFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WRott — 50.60°N, 7.25°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°EDaohugou — 41.32°N, 119.24°ESharteg — 44.14°N, 95.78°EAnda-Khuduk — 45.39°N, 101.84°EZaza — 53.30°N, 112.09°E

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The named rock units Lucanidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 23 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Lucanidae and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Lucanidae and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

3,339 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 36 sites for Lucanidae, 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

33 references

Each of the 53 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. 21 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 Lucanidae

Credit
fir0002 flagstaffotos [at] gmail.com Canon 20D + Sigma 150mm f/2.8 + Canon MT 24-EX
Licence
GFDL 1.2
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Lucanidae 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 itScarabaeoidea through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Latreille 1804