Pipunculidae

Pipunculidae is a family of flies (Diptera) commonly termed big-headed flies, a reference to the large (holoptic) eyes, which cover nearly the entire head. The family is found worldwide and more than 1300 species have been described.

Pipunculidae

This image is created by user Dick Belgers at Waarneming.nl , a source of nature observations in the Netherlands. · CC BY 3.0 · 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
Also called
big-headed flyPBDB
Sits inside
CyclorrhaphaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 27 million years on record.

The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 20.45 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 13.82 Mya.

Paleocene — about 0 of 15 occurrencesEocene — about 13 of 15 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 15 occurrencesMiocene — about 2 of 15 occurrencesMiocene57–55 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences55–54 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences52–51 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences51–50 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences50–48 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences38–36 Mya — about 3 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 4 occurrences35–33 Mya — about 3 occurrences22–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences19–17 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences16–14 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences48.07 Mya20.45 Mya56.8 Mya13 Mya

15 occurrences of Pipunculidae 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

15 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

3 formations

Tranquille — 50.13°N, 120.51°WFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WKlondike Mountain — 48.66°N, 118.75°W

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The named rock units Pipunculidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 11 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Pipunculidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Pipunculidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

2,354 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Pipunculidae, 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

7 references

Each of the 15 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 Pipunculidae

Credit
This image is created by user Dick Belgers at Waarneming.nl , a source of nature observations in the Netherlands.
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Pipunculidae 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

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 itCyclorrhapha through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Walker 1834