Oregramma
Oregramma is a genus of "butterfly mimicking" lacewing in the extinct family Kalligrammatidae. Fossils of this genus have been found in the Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation of China. It likely fed on pollen and plant juices, unlike modern lacewings, most of which are carnivorous.

Qiang Yang, Yongjie Wang, Conrad C Labandeira, Chungkun Shih and Dong Ren · CC BY 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
- KalligrammatinaePBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At most 4.4 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 125.77 Mya and 121.4 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
5 occurrences of Oregramma 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
5 occurrences- Early Cretaceous100%
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
- Yixian Formation · Jehol Group5
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The named rock units Oregramma has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Oregramma and its relatives
Early CretaceousWhere Oregramma and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
138 taxa- Flexicorpus acutirostratus2 sites
- Halonatusivena nervosus2 sites
- Torrirostratus pilosus2 sites
- Abrocar macilentus1 site
- Abropelecinus annulatus1 site
- Acephialtitia colossa1 site
- Alegorius1 site
- Alegorius yixianus1 site
- Allaboilus hani1 site
- Allophalerus latus1 site
- Angulochterus quadrimaculatus1 site
- Anoixis complanus1 site
- Antiqusolidus maculatus1 site
- Apoclion antennatus1 site
- Apriacma clavata1 site
- Apriacma renaria1 site
- Ashanga hongi1 site
- Azygopelecinus clavatus1 site
- Baissoleon similis1 site
- Beipiaocoris multifurcus1 site
- Bellicoris mirabilis1 site
- Bellimordella capitulifera1 site
- Bellimordella longispina1 site
- Bellimordella robusta1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Oregramma, 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
3 references- Mesozoic lacewings from China provide phylogenetic insight into evolution of the Kalligrammatidae (Neuroptera)3
- High niche diversity in Mesozoic pollinating lacewings1
- Two new Late Jurassic genera of kalligrammatids from Beipiao, Liaoning (Neuroptera, Kalligramatidae)1
Each of the 5 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 Oregramma
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Qiang Yang, Yongjie Wang, Conrad C Labandeira, Chungkun Shih and Dong Ren
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Oregramma 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Oregramma”
- 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 itKalligrammatinae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ren 2003