Pompilidae

Pompilidae is a family of wasps commonly called spider wasps, spider-hunting wasps, or pompilid wasps. The family is cosmopolitan, with some 5,000 species in six subfamilies. With the exception of some group-nesting Ageniellini), the wasps are solitary. Most capture and paralyze prey, though members of the subfamily Ceropalinae are kleptoparasites of other pompilids, or ectoparasitoids of living spiders.

Pompilidae

Bjenks · 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
spider waspPBDB
Sits inside
PompiloideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 44 million years on record.

The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 1.4 Mya.

Paleocene — about 0 of 35 occurrencesEocene — about 20 of 35 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 8 of 35 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 5 of 35 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 2 of 35 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 35 occurrences57–55 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences55–53 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences53–51 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences51–50 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences50–48 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences38–36 Mya — about 6 occurrences36–34 Mya — about 10 occurrences34–32 Mya — about 3 occurrences29–27 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences27–25 Mya — about 4 occurrences25–23 Mya — about 4 occurrences21–19 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences19–17 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences17–15 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences14–12 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences12–9.8 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences9.8–7.9 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences7.9–6.0 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences6.0–4.1 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences4.1–2.2 Mya — about 2 occurrences2.2–308 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences48.07 Mya3.6 Mya57 Mya308 ka

35 occurrences of Pompilidae 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

35 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

8 formations

Florissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WFlorissant — 38.93°N, 105.24°WNiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°EUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°ERita Blanca — 35.71°N, 102.45°WNagano — 31.88°N, 130.34°EKlondike Mountain — 48.66°N, 118.75°WFur — 56.93°N, 8.83°E

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The named rock units Pompilidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 15 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Pompilidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Pompilidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

1,769 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 24 sites for Pompilidae, 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

22 references

Each of the 35 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. 10 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 Pompilidae

Credit
Bjenks
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Pompilidae 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 itPompiloidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Latreille 1804