Scatopsidae

The minute black scavenger flies or "dung midges", are a family, Scatopsidae, of nematoceran flies. Despite being distributed throughout the world, they form a small family with only around 250 described species in 27 genera, although many await description and doubtless even more await discovery. These are generally small, sometimes minute, dark flies, generally similar to black flies (Simuliidae), but usually lacking the humped thorax characteristic of that family.

Scatopsidae

kallerna · CC BY-SA 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
minute black scavenger flyPBDB
Sits inside
ScatopsoideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 89 million years on record.

The record covers at least 110.1 Mya to 20.45 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 113.2 Mya to 13.82 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 34 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 2 of 34 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 34 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 15 of 34 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 34 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 15 of 34 occurrencesMiocene115–112 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences112–108 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences108–105 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences105–101 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences101–98 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences98–95 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences95–91 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences67–64 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences64–60 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences60–57 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences57–53 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences53–50 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences50–46 Mya — about 1 occurrence46–43 Mya — about 2 occurrences43–39 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences39–36 Mya — about 4 occurrences36–33 Mya — about 5 occurrences33–29 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences29–26 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences26–22 Mya — about 1 occurrence22–19 Mya — about 6 occurrences19–15 Mya — about 6 occurrences15–12 Mya — about 1 occurrence110.1 Mya20.45 Mya115 Mya12 Mya

34 occurrences of Scatopsidae on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

34 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

Kishenehn — 48.40°N, 113.71°WArgiles d'lignite du Soissonnais — 49.33°N, 2.66°EBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WLa Toca — 19.55°N, 70.61°WYanigua — 18.98°N, 69.45°WMazantic Shale — 17.15°N, 92.72°WHollín — 0.71°S, 77.79°W

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The named rock units Scatopsidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 22 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Scatopsidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Scatopsidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

2,787 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 29 sites for Scatopsidae, 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

18 references

Each of the 34 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. 6 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 Scatopsidae

Credit
kallerna
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Scatopsidae 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 itScatopsoidea through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

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