Nicrophorus

Searched as Nicrophorus guttulus lajollae. The Paleobiology Database treats Nicrophorus as the accepted name.

Burying beetles or sexton beetles, genus Nicrophorus, are the best-known members of the beetle subfamily Silphinae. Most of these beetles are black with red markings on the elytra (forewings). Burying beetles are true to their name—they bury the carcasses of small vertebrates such as birds and rodents as a food source for their larvae; this makes them carnivorous. They are unusual among insects in that both the male and female parents take care of the brood.

Nicrophorus

Blocky1OOO · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
NicrophoriniPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At most 196 thousand years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 210 ka and 14 ka, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 1 of 1 occurrencePleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 1 occurrence213 ka–189 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences189 ka–166 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences166 ka–142 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences142 ka–118 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences118 ka–95 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences95 ka–71 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences71 ka–47 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences47 ka–24 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences24 ka–0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences710 ka0 Mya

1 occurrence of Nicrophorus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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.

Nicrophorus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Nicrophorus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

938 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Nicrophorus, 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

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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content3

Picture of Nicrophorus

Credit
Blocky1OOO
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Photogrammetry

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Nicrophorus americanus · ypm:ent:626334

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itNicrophorini through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Fabricius 1775