Tabanus sudeticus
Tabanus sudeticus, also known as the dark giant horsefly, is a species of biting horse-fly. It is the heaviest fly in Europe.

Kulac · 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
- dark giant horseflyPBDB
- Sits inside
- TabanusPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At most 1.1 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 3.6 Mya and 2.58 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Tabanus sudeticus on record, most of them in the Pliocene. 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
2 occurrences- Pliocene100%
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.
Tabanus sudeticus and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Tabanus sudeticus and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
156 taxa- Bibio acaptus2 sites
- Bibio contererus2 sites
- Bibio nebulosus2 sites
- Dilophus flavipes2 sites
- Abia1 site
- Acanthocinus schmidti1 site
- Adelges1 site
- Aeshnidae1 site
- Aleocharinae1 site
- Allopliosilpha inclavata1 site
- Anthribidae1 site
- Aphelocheirus (Aphelocheirus) affinis1 site
- Aphididae1 site
- Aphodius rufipes1 site
- Araneae1 site
- Araneidae1 site
- Atrophini1 site
- Bibio discerptus1 site
- Bibio enormus1 site
- Bibio praecidus1 site
- Brachinus1 site
- Brachyptera schmidti1 site
- Braconidae1 site
- Buprestidae1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Tabanus sudeticus, 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
2 references- Eine Zweite Bremse (Tabanidae) zusammen mit ihrem Parasiten (Nematoda, Mermithoidae) aus dem Oberpliozän von Willershausen, Krs. Osterode1
- Dipteren aus dem Oberpliozän von Willershausen1
Each of the 2 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Tabanus sudeticus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Kulac
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Tabanus sudeticus 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 itTabanus through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Zeller 1842