Tanytarsus
Tanytarsus is a large genus of non-biting midges of the tribe Tanytarsini and subfamily Chironominae of the bloodworm family (Chironomidae). The larvae of these insects occur in a wide range of freshwater habitats with some species being marine.

Katja Schulz from Washington, D. C., USA · CC BY 2.0 · 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- Sits inside
- TanytarsinaPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At least 43 million years on record.
The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 4.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 1.4 Mya.
19 occurrences of Tanytarsus 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
19 occurrences- Eocene95%
- Pliocene3%
- Pleistocene2%
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
2 formations
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The named rock units Tanytarsus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 17 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Tanytarsus and its relatives
EoceneWhere Tanytarsus and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
1,921 taxa- Corneliola avia3 sites
- Dicranomyia (Dicranomyia) graciosa3 sites
- Dicranomyia (Dicranomyia) lobata3 sites
- Mantohelea laca3 sites
- Monogedania clunipes3 sites
- Mycetobia connexa3 sites
- Neolitochropus bedovoyi3 sites
- Prosphyracephala succini3 sites
- Strieremaeus illibatus3 sites
- Allacrotelsa dubia2 sites
- Ampulicomorpha succinalis2 sites
- Archistempellina falcifera2 sites
- Archistempellina perkovskyi2 sites
- Arctogephyra agilis2 sites
- Attagenus hoffeinsorum2 sites
- Atyphohelea cothurnata2 sites
- Berothidae2 sites
- Brachypogon2 sites
- Brachypogon (Isohelea) prominulus2 sites
- Bradoponera meieri2 sites
- Ceratopogon forcipiformis2 sites
- Cheilotrichia (Empeda) pawlowskii2 sites
- Corynoptera2 sites
- Corynoptera klebsii2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Tanytarsus, 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
10 references- Towards the diversity of non-biting midges of the tribe Tanytarsini from Eocene Baltic amber (Diptera: Chironomidae)4
- Minute and diverse in fossil sticky stuff: Tanytarsini (Diptera: Chironomidae) from early Eocene Indian Cambay amber3
- Monographie des Cecidomyidae, des Sciaridae, des Mycetophilidae et des Chironomidae de l'ambre de la Baltique3
- The Tanytarsini (Diptera: Chironomidae) in the collection of the Museum of Amber Inclusions, University of Gdansk2
- Non-biting midges of the tribe Tanytarsini in Eocene amber from the Rovno region (Ukraine): a pioneer systematic study with notes on the phylogeny (Diptera: Chironomidae)2
- Diversity of culicomorphan dipterans in the Eocene Kishenehn Konservat-Lagerstätte (Montana, USA) and its palaeoecological implications1
- In the Eocene, the extant genus Caladomyia occurred in the Palaearctic (Diptera: Chironomidae: Tanytarsini)1
- A new fossil Tanytarsus from Eocene Baltic amber, with notes on systematics of the genus (Diptera: Chironomidae)1
- A new species group in the genus Tanytarsus van der Wulp (Diptera: Chironomidae) based on a fossil record from Baltic amber1
- Aquatic insects of the Rita Blanca lake deposits1
Each of the 19 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. 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 Tanytarsus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Katja Schulz from Washington, D. C., USA
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Tanytarsus 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Tanytarsus”
- 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 itTanytarsina through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. van der Wulp 1874