Mesoraphidiidae

Mesoraphidiidae is an extinct family of snakeflies in the suborder Raphidiomorpha. The family lived from the Late Jurassic through the Late Cretaceous and is known from twenty-five genera. Mesoraphidiids have been found as both compression fossils and as inclusions in amber. The family was first proposed in 1925 by the Russian paleoentomologist Andrey Vasilyevich Martynov based on Upper Jurassic fossils recovered in Kazakhstan. The family was expanded in 2002 by the synonymizing of several other proposed snakefly families. The family was divided into three subfamilies and one tribe in a 2011 paper, further clarifying the relationships of the included genera.

Mesoraphidiidae

Pérez-de la Fuente, R.; Peñalver, E.; Delclòs, X.; Engel, M.S · CC BY 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
Sits inside
RaphidiformiaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 71 million years on record.

The record covers at least 154.8 Mya to 83.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 165.3 Mya to 72.2 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 3 of 127 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 12 of 127 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 95 of 127 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 17 of 127 occurrencesLate Cretaceous167–164 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences164–161 Mya — about 2 occurrences161–157 Mya — about 2 occurrences157–154 Mya — about 2 occurrences154–151 Mya — about 4 occurrences151–148 Mya — about 3 occurrences148–145 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences145–141 Mya — about 1 occurrence141–138 Mya — about 2 occurrences138–135 Mya — about 2 occurrences135–132 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences132–128 Mya — about 1 occurrence128–125 Mya — about 6 occurrences125–122 Mya — about 27 occurrences122–119 Mya — about 18 occurrences119–116 Mya — about 15 occurrences116–112 Mya — about 12 occurrences112–109 Mya — about 3 occurrences109–106 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences106–103 Mya — about 4 occurrences103–99 Mya — about 5 occurrences99–96 Mya — about 7 occurrences96–93 Mya — about 5 occurrences93–90 Mya — about 2 occurrences86–83 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences83–80 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences80–77 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences77–74 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences74–70 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences154.8 Mya83.6 Mya167 Mya70 Mya

127 occurrences of Mesoraphidiidae on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. 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

127 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

28 formations

Yixian — 41.15°N, 117.96°EYixian — 41.21°N, 119.25°EYixian — 41.75°N, 120.80°EYixian — 41.62°N, 120.83°EZaza — 53.30°N, 112.09°EKarabastau — 42.69°N, 70.41°EKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°EDaohugou — 41.32°N, 119.24°EDzun-Bain — 45.45°N, 99.13°ELaiyang — 36.76°N, 120.64°ELaiyang — 36.78°N, 120.67°EWeald Clay — 51.14°N, 0.33°WWeald Clay — 51.10°N, 0.45°WDurlston — 50.60°N, 1.95°WLas Penosas — 43.31°N, 4.45°WEscucha — 42.64°N, 2.72°Wla Pedrera de Rubies — 42.01°N, 0.96°EJinju — 35.17°N, 128.13°EShahai — 41.25°N, 120.03°ESinuiju — 40.08°N, 124.43°ELa Huérguina — 40.06°N, 1.88°WLushangfen — 39.80°N, 116.08°ERedmond — 54.69°N, 66.75°WShinekhudag — 44.72°N, 107.92°EUlaan-Ereg — 45.59°N, 107.80°ELulworth — 50.60°N, 1.95°WRaritan — 40.47°N, 74.32°WGodymboyskaya — 51.63°N, 116.82°EArgun — 51.71°N, 113.39°ELa Pedrera de Rúbies — 42.02°N, 0.89°E

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The named rock units Mesoraphidiidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 18 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Mesoraphidiidae and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

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

Found in the same rock

2,709 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 56 sites for Mesoraphidiidae, 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

44 references

Each of the 127 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. 32 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 Mesoraphidiidae

Credit
Pérez-de la Fuente, R.; Peñalver, E.; Delclòs, X.; Engel, M.S
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Mesoraphidiidae 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 itRaphidiformia through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Martynov 1925