Psocodea
Psocodea is a taxonomic group of insects comprising the bark lice, book lice and parasitic lice. It was formerly considered a superorder, but is now generally considered by entomologists as an order. Despite the greatly differing appearance of parasitic lice (Phthiraptera), they are believed to have evolved from within the former order Psocoptera, which contained the bark lice and book lice, now found to be paraphyletic.

L. Shyamal · CC BY-SA 2.5 · 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
- bark lousePBDB
- Sits inside
- NeopteraPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At least 201 million years on record.
The record covers at least 201.4 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 205.7 Mya to 0 Mya.
308 occurrences of Psocodea on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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
308 occurrences- Late Triassicunder 1%
- Early Jurassicunder 1%
- Middle Jurassicunder 1%
- Late Jurassic3%
- Early Cretaceous16%
- Late Cretaceous26%
- Eocene40%
- Oligoceneunder 1%
- Miocene10%
- Pleistoceneunder 1%
- Holocene3%
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
22 formations
- Bouldnor Formation · Solent Group16
- Argiles d'lignite du Soissonnais Formation14
- Escucha Formation13
- Kheta Formation13
- Karabastau Formation8
- Mazantic Shale Formation · Simojovel Group6
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Psocodea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 214 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Psocodea and its relatives
EoceneWhere Psocodea and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
3,874 taxa- Forcipomyia10 sites
- Ceratopogon9 sites
- Monogedania clunipes8 sites
- Culicoides7 sites
- Diptera7 sites
- Paramesopsocus adibi7 sites
- Sphaeropsocus kuenowii7 sites
- Ampliceps furcitibia6 sites
- Arachnida6 sites
- Distenorrhinus (Distenorrhinus) pallidirostris6 sites
- Eohelea sinuosa6 sites
- Lepidoptera6 sites
- Oxycorynoides (Oxycorynoides) similis6 sites
- Protoscelis jurassica6 sites
- Protoscelis longicornis6 sites
- Psocidus picteti6 sites
- Valenzuela proavus6 sites
- Amphientomum paradoxum5 sites
- Ampliceps dubius5 sites
- Araneae5 sites
- Archirhyphus asiaticus5 sites
- Brachypogon (Isohelea) prominulus5 sites
- Ceratopogoninae5 sites
- Codemus synaptoides5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 113 sites for Psocodea, and this reads all of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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
114 references- Die fossilen copeognathan und ihre phylogenie46
- Tertiary bark lice (Insecta: Psocodea) from the Insect Limestone (Bembridge Marls, Late Eocene) of the Isle of Wight, UK15
- Psocoptera in Late Cretaceous insect-bearing resins from the Taimyr13
- Fossil insects of the Order Psocoptera from Tertiary amber of Chiapas, Mexico13
- New Psocoptera (Insecta) from the lowermost Eocene Amber of Oise, France11
- Paramesopsocidae, a new Mesozoic psocid family (Insecta: Psocodea "Psocoptera": Psocomorpha)9
- New barklice (Psocodea, Trogiomorpha) from Lower Cretaceous Spanish amber8
- Die im Bernstein befindlichen Neuropteren der Vorwelt8
- Diverse barklice (Psocodea) from Late Cretaceous Vendean amber6
- Systematic, palaeoecology, and palaeobiogeography of the insect fauna from Mexican amber6
- Beiträge zur Monographie der Psociden6
- New records of barklice (Psocodea, Empheriidae) from the Bqaatouta and Baskinta amber (early Barremian, Early Cretaceous) in Lebanon5
Each of the 308 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. 102 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 Psocodea
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- L. Shyamal
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.5
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Psocodea 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Psocodea”
- 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 itNeoptera through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hennig 1966