Stratiomyidae

The soldier flies are a family of flies. The family contains over 2,700 species in over 380 extant genera worldwide. Larvae are found in a wide array of locations, mostly in wetlands, damp places in soil, sod, under bark, in animal excrement, and in decaying organic matter. Adults are found near larval habitats. They are diverse in size and shape, though they commonly are partly or wholly metallic green, or somewhat wasplike mimics, marked with black and yellow or green and sometimes metallic. They are often rather inactive flies which typically rest with their wings placed one above the other over the abdomen.

Stratiomyidae

Muhammad Mahdi Karim · GFDL 1.2 · 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
soldier flyPBDB
Sits inside
StratiomyomorphaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 100 million years on record.

The record covers at least 121.4 Mya to 20.45 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 125.77 Mya to 13.82 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 6 of 55 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 10 of 55 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 55 occurrencesEocene — about 16 of 55 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 13 of 55 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 10 of 55 occurrencesMiocene128–124 Mya — about 2 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 3 occurrences109–105 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences105–101 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences101–97 Mya — about 4 occurrences97–93 Mya — about 3 occurrences93–89 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences85–81 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences81–78 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences78–74 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences74–70 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences54–50 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences50–47 Mya — about 2 occurrences47–43 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences43–39 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences39–35 Mya — about 9 occurrences35–31 Mya — about 5 occurrences31–27 Mya — about 2 occurrences27–23 Mya — about 9 occurrences23–19 Mya — about 6 occurrences19–15 Mya — about 4 occurrences15–12 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences121.4 Mya20.45 Mya128 Mya12 Mya

55 occurrences of Stratiomyidae 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

55 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

11 formations

Rott — 50.75°N, 7.26°EFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WLa Pedrera de Rúbies — 42.02°N, 0.89°EBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WGreen River — 39.98°N, 109.11°WGreen River — 41.55°N, 109.51°WHydrobienkalk — 50.04°N, 8.24°ENiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°EForemost — 49.83°N, 111.70°WEscucha — 42.64°N, 2.72°WRaritan — 40.47°N, 74.32°WVentana — 40.72°S, 71.07°W

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The named rock units Stratiomyidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 20 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Stratiomyidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Stratiomyidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

3,477 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 32 sites for Stratiomyidae, 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

29 references

Each of the 55 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. 17 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 Stratiomyidae

Credit
Muhammad Mahdi Karim
Licence
GFDL 1.2
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Stratiomyidae 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 itStratiomyomorpha through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Latreille 1802