Tarsophlebiidae

The Tarsophlebiidae is an extinct family of medium-sized fossil odonates from the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous period of Eurasia. They are either the most basal member of the damsel-dragonfly grade ("anisozygopteres") within the stem group of Anisoptera, or the sister group of all Recent odonates. They are characterized by the basally open discoidal cell in both pairs of wings, very long legs, paddle-shaped male cerci, and a hypertrophied ovipositor in females.

Tarsophlebiidae

Dr. Günter Bechly · 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
Sits inside
PanodonataPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 53 million years on record.

The record covers at least 174.7 Mya to 121.4 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 184.2 Mya to 113.2 Mya.

Early Jurassic — about 1 of 27 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 27 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 18 of 27 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 8 of 27 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous186–183 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences183–181 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences181–178 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences178–176 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences176–173 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences163–161 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences161–159 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences159–156 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences156–154 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences154–151 Mya — about 1 occurrence151–149 Mya — about 3 occurrences149–146 Mya — about 8 occurrences146–144 Mya — about 4 occurrences141–139 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences139–136 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences134–131 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences131–129 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences129–127 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences127–124 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences124–122 Mya — about 1 occurrence122–119 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences119–117 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences117–114 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences114–112 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences174.7 Mya121.4 Mya186 Mya112 Mya

27 occurrences of Tarsophlebiidae on record, most of them in the Late Jurassic. 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

27 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

9 formations

Solnhofen — 48.91°N, 11.14°ESolnhofen — 48.90°N, 11.18°EKarabastau — 42.95°N, 69.92°EKarabastau — 42.69°N, 70.41°EKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°EWeald Clay — 51.13°N, 0.33°WZaza — 53.30°N, 112.09°EZaza — 53.20°N, 112.82°EYixian — 41.62°N, 120.83°EDzun-Bain — 45.45°N, 99.13°ECheremkhovskaya — 54.17°N, 100.31°EAmpthill Clay — 51.81°N, 0.09°WDurlston — 50.60°N, 1.95°W

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The named rock units Tarsophlebiidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Tarsophlebiidae and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Tarsophlebiidae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

732 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 23 sites for Tarsophlebiidae, 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

16 references

Each of the 27 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. 4 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 Tarsophlebiidae

Credit
Dr. Günter Bechly
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Tarsophlebiidae 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 itPanodonata through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Handlirsch 1906