Nehalennia

Nehalennia is a genus of very small damselflies in the family Coenagrionidae. Most of the species are commonly known as Sprites. One species, N. speciosa occurs in Eurasia; the rest in North and South America.

Nehalennia

Mike Ostrowski from North Bethesda, Maryland, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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
CoenagrionidaePBDB
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 most 7.1 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 23.04 Mya and 15.98 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Oligocene — about 0 of 1 occurrenceMiocene — about 1 of 1 occurrenceMiocene23–23 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23.5 Mya15.5 Mya

1 occurrence of Nehalennia 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

1 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.

Nehalennia and its relatives

Miocene

Where Nehalennia and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

12 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Nehalennia, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Nehalennia

Credit
Mike Ostrowski from North Bethesda, Maryland, USA
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC0 Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

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 itCoenagrionidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Selys-Longchamps 1850