Tipuloidea

A crane fly, also known as a mosquito eater, or a mosquito hawk, is a member of the dipteran superfamily Tipuloidea, which contains the living families Cylindrotomidae, Limoniidae, Pediciidae and Tipulidae, as well as several extinct families. "Winter crane flies", members of the family Trichoceridae, are sufficiently different from the typical crane flies of Tipuloidea to be excluded from the superfamily Tipuloidea, and are placed as their sister group within Tipulomorpha. Two other families of flies, the phantom crane flies (Ptychopteridae) and primitive crane flies (Tanyderidae), have similar common names due to their similar appearance.

Tipuloidea

Alvesgaspar · 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
crane flyPBDB
Sits inside
TipulomorphaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 245 million years on record.

The record covers at least 245.19 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 247 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Triassic — about 0 of 1119 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 3 of 1119 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 5 of 1119 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 82 of 1119 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 13 of 1119 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 44 of 1119 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 89 of 1119 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 48 of 1119 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 8 of 1119 occurrencesEocene — about 652 of 1119 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 65 of 1119 occurrencesMiocene — about 102 of 1119 occurrencesPliocene — about 1 of 1119 occurrencesPleistocene — about 4 of 1119 occurrences252–244 Mya — about 2 occurrences244–235 Mya — about 1 occurrence235–227 Mya — about 2 occurrences227–218 Mya — about 1 occurrence218–210 Mya — about 1 occurrence210–202 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences202–193 Mya — about 16 occurrences193–185 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences185–176 Mya — about 65 occurrences176–168 Mya — about 4 occurrences168–160 Mya — about 12 occurrences160–151 Mya — about 12 occurrences151–143 Mya — about 29 occurrences143–134 Mya — about 4 occurrences134–126 Mya — about 4 occurrences126–118 Mya — about 33 occurrences118–109 Mya — about 36 occurrences109–101 Mya — about 12 occurrences101–92 Mya — about 42 occurrences92–84 Mya — about 2 occurrences84–76 Mya — about 3 occurrences76–67 Mya — about 1 occurrence67–59 Mya — about 4 occurrences59–50 Mya — about 43 occurrences50–42 Mya — about 44 occurrences42–34 Mya — about 570 occurrences34–25 Mya — about 41 occurrences25–17 Mya — about 68 occurrences17–8.4 Mya — about 47 occurrences8.4–0 Mya — about 19 occurrences245.19 Mya11.7 ka252 Mya0 Mya

1,119 occurrences of Tipuloidea on record, most of them in the Eocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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

1,119 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

77 formations

Florissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WCrato — 7.13°S, 39.70°WGreen River — 39.46°N, 108.41°WGreen River — 39.98°N, 109.11°WGreen River — 39.00°N, 108.00°WGreen River — 38.90°N, 109.20°WGreen River — 41.56°N, 109.55°WGreen River — 41.55°N, 109.51°WGreen River — 39.63°N, 108.15°WGreen River — 39.64°N, 108.76°WGreen River — 42.13°N, 110.13°WRott — 50.75°N, 7.26°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°ESharteg — 44.14°N, 95.79°EPosidonia Shale — 52.36°N, 10.59°EPosidonia Shale — 52.36°N, 10.75°EPosidonia Shale — 52.31°N, 10.62°EPosidonia Shale — 52.27°N, 10.68°EDzhil — 42.70°N, 77.20°EØlst — 56.84°N, 8.99°EØlst — 56.90°N, 8.75°EØlst — 56.95°N, 8.91°EDaohugou — 41.32°N, 119.24°EMoler — 56.84°N, 9.00°EEscucha — 42.64°N, 2.72°WEscucha — 40.80°N, 0.81°WGurvan-Eren — 48.07°N, 91.65°EGurvan-Eren — 46.38°N, 93.95°EItat — 56.17°N, 93.17°EGessoso-solfifera — 43.90°N, 12.92°ENiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°EPaskapoo — 52.35°N, 113.76°WPaskapoo — 52.33°N, 113.74°WSalt — 47.69°N, 7.53°EFur — 56.90°N, 8.75°EFur — 56.84°N, 8.96°EFur — 56.89°N, 8.67°EFur — 56.92°N, 8.92°EKhaya — 62.16°N, 118.60°EWhitby Mudstone — 52.01°N, 1.99°WRenova — 45.21°N, 112.18°WKaragan — 45.05°N, 42.32°EIchetuy — 51.27°N, 108.10°E

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The named rock units Tipuloidea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 53 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 624 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Tipuloidea and its relatives

Eocene

Where Tipuloidea and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

7,648 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 284 sites for Tipuloidea, and this reads 240 of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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

275 references

Each of the 1,119 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. 263 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 Tipuloidea

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

No 3D scan of Tipuloidea 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 itTipulomorpha through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

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