Notonectidae

Notonectidae is a cosmopolitan family of aquatic insects in the order Hemiptera, commonly called backswimmers because they swim supine in a kind of "backstroke". They are all predators and typically range from 0.5 to 1.5 cm (0.2–0.6 in) in length. They are similar in appearance to Corixidae, but can be separated by differences in their dorsal-ventral coloration, front legs, and predatory behavior. Their dorsum is convex, lightly colored without cross striations. Their front tarsi are not scoop-shaped and their hind legs are fringed for swimming. There are about 350 species in two subfamilies: Notonectinae with seven genera, and Anisopinae with four genera. Members in the former subfamily are often larger than those in the latter.

Notonectidae

Didier Descouens · 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
NotonectoideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 174 million years on record.

The record covers at least 174.7 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 184.2 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Jurassic — about 2 of 69 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 69 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 4 of 69 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 28 of 69 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 1 of 69 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 69 occurrencesEocene — about 3 of 69 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 19 of 69 occurrencesMiocene — about 8 of 69 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 69 occurrencesPleistocene — about 3 of 69 occurrences188–182 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences182–175 Mya — about 1 occurrence175–169 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences157–150 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences150–144 Mya — about 3 occurrences144–138 Mya — about 2 occurrences132–125 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences125–119 Mya — about 11 occurrences119–113 Mya — about 14 occurrences94–88 Mya — about 1 occurrence44–38 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences38–31 Mya — about 4 occurrences31–25 Mya — about 10 occurrences25–19 Mya — about 12 occurrences19–13 Mya — about 3 occurrences13–6.3 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences6.3–0 Mya — about 4 occurrences174.7 Mya11.7 ka188 Mya0 Mya

69 occurrences of Notonectidae on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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

69 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

20 formations

Rott — 50.75°N, 7.26°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°ELaiyang — 36.78°N, 120.67°ELaiyang — 37.03°N, 120.79°EZaza — 53.30°N, 112.09°EChijinbao — 39.97°N, 97.80°EGurvan-Eren — 48.07°N, 91.65°EGurvan-Eren — 46.38°N, 93.95°EGurvan-Eren — 46.30°N, 93.90°ESolnhofen — 48.91°N, 11.14°EYixian — 41.62°N, 120.83°EFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WLa Cantera — 32.99°S, 66.88°WChijinpu — 39.92°N, 96.75°ELa Huérguina — 40.06°N, 1.88°WKarabastau — 42.69°N, 70.41°EBarstow — 34.95°N, 116.83°WCheremkhovskaya — 54.17°N, 100.31°EShanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°EOsinovo — 54.49°N, 87.53°EShouchang — 29.59°N, 120.11°EFangyan — 29.59°N, 120.11°ELulworth — 50.60°N, 1.95°WYingcheng — 44.40°N, 126.19°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Notonectidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 19 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Notonectidae and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

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

Found in the same rock

1,414 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 55 sites for Notonectidae, 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

37 references

Each of the 69 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. 25 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 Notonectidae

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

No 3D scan of Notonectidae 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 itNotonectoidea through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

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