Triamyxa coprolithica

Triamyxa is an extinct genus of myxophagan beetle in the monotypic family Triamyxidae from the Carnian stage of Late Triassic, approximately 230 million years ago. It was found in the Keuper Claystone of Poland. The type species is Triamyxa coprolithica and it was identified from specimens found in the coprolite ZPAL AbIII/3520, likely belonging to the dinosauriform Silesaurus opolensis. Because Triamyxa specimens were found inside coprolites, this may offer a new method of finding insect fossils aside from amber. It is currently the oldest known member of Myxophaga. It was interpreted as either the most basal member of Myxophaga, or a sister group to Hydroscaphidae.

Triamyxa coprolithica

Martin Qvarnström, Martin Fikáček, Joel Vikberg Wernström, Sigrid Huld, Rolf G. Beutel, Emmanuel Arriaga-Varela, Per… · CC BY 4.0 · 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
TriamyxaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At most 6.3 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 233.6 Mya and 227.3 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Late Triassic — about 1 of 1 occurrenceLate Triassic234–233 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences233–233 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences233–233 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences233–233 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences233–232 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences232–232 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences232–232 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences232–232 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences232–231 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences231–231 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences231–231 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences231–231 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences231–230 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences230–230 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences230–230 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences230–230 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences230–229 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences229–229 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences229–229 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences229–229 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences229–229 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences229–228 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences228–228 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences228–228 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences228–228 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences228–227 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences234.1 Mya226.8 Mya

1 occurrence of Triamyxa coprolithica on record, most of them in the Late Triassic. 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 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

1 formation

Drawno Beds — 50.67°N, 18.25°E

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

Triamyxa coprolithica and its relatives

Late Triassic

Where Triamyxa coprolithica and its relatives were recorded in the Late Triassic.

Found in the same rock

12 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Triamyxa coprolithica, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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 doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Triamyxa coprolithica

Credit
Martin Qvarnström, Martin Fikáček, Joel Vikberg Wernström, Sigrid Huld, Rolf G. Beutel, Emmanuel Arriaga-Varela, Per…
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Triamyxa coprolithica 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 itTriamyxa through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Qvarnström et al. 2021