Muscoidea

Muscoidea is a superfamily of flies in the subsection Calyptratae. Muscoidea, with approximately 7000 described species, is nearly 5% of the known species level diversity of the Diptera, the true flies. Most muscoid flies are saprophagous, coprophagous or necrophagous as larvae, but some species are parasitic, predatory, or phytophagous. In September 2008, a study was done on the superfamily using both nucleic and mitochondrial DNA and the conclusion suggested that Muscoidea may actually be paraphyletic.

Muscoidea

Uncredited · Attribution · 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
CalyptrataePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 14 million years on record.

The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 33.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 27.3 Mya.

Paleocene — about 0 of 2 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 2 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 2 occurrencesOligocene57–56 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences56–55 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences55–54 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences54–53 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences53–52 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences52–51 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences51–50 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences50–49 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences49–48 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences35–34 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences34–33 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences33–32 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences32–31 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences31–30 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences30–29 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences48.07 Mya33.9 Mya56.6 Mya26.7 Mya

2 occurrences of Muscoidea 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

2 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

1 formation

Redbank Plains — 27.66°S, 152.88°E

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The named rock units Muscoidea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Muscoidea and its relatives

Eocene

Where Muscoidea and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

51 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Muscoidea, 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

2 references

Each of the 2 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. 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 Muscoidea

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Muscoidea was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itCalyptratae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Latreille 1802