Hymenoptera

Searched as Aculeata. The Paleobiology Database treats Hymenoptera as the accepted name.

Aculeata is an infraorder of Hymenoptera containing ants, bees, and stinging wasps. The name is a reference to the defining feature of the group, which is the modification of the ovipositor into a stinger. However, many members of the group cannot sting, either retaining the ovipositor, or having lost it altogether. A large part of the clade is parasitic.

Hymenoptera

Uncredited · 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
HymenopteridaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 469 million years on record.

The record covers at least 469.1 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 471.3 Mya to 0 Mya.

Ordovician — about 1 of 6576 occurrencesSilurian — about 0 of 6576 occurrencesDevonian — about 0 of 6576 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 0 of 6576 occurrencesPermian — about 0 of 6576 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 6576 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 40 of 6576 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 13 of 6576 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 31 of 6576 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 71 of 6576 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 417 of 6576 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 736 of 6576 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 845 of 6576 occurrencesPaleocene — about 31 of 6576 occurrencesEocene — about 2697 of 6576 occurrencesOligocene — about 391 of 6576 occurrencesMiocene — about 1040 of 6576 occurrencesPliocene — about 34 of 6576 occurrencesPleistocene — about 97 of 6576 occurrences481–465 Mya — about 1 occurrence256–240 Mya — about 10 occurrences240–224 Mya — about 40 occurrences224–208 Mya — about 2 occurrences208–192 Mya — about 3 occurrences192–176 Mya — about 26 occurrences176–160 Mya — about 97 occurrences160–144 Mya — about 390 occurrences144–128 Mya — about 51 occurrences128–112 Mya — about 594 occurrences112–96 Mya — about 461 occurrences96–80 Mya — about 365 occurrences80–64 Mya — about 114 occurrences64–48 Mya — about 376 occurrences48–32 Mya — about 2397 occurrences32–16 Mya — about 852 occurrences16–0 Mya — about 796 occurrences469.1 Mya11.7 ka481 Mya0 Mya

6,576 occurrences of Hymenoptera 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

6,576 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

173 formations

Florissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WFlorissant — 38.93°N, 105.24°WKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°EKarabastau — 42.69°N, 70.41°EKarabastau — 42.95°N, 69.92°EDaohugou — 41.32°N, 119.24°EYixian — 41.62°N, 120.83°EYixian — 41.15°N, 117.96°EYixian — 41.17°N, 119.25°EYixian — 42.04°N, 116.63°EYixian — 41.83°N, 121.13°EYixian — 42.05°N, 116.44°EYixian — 41.92°N, 117.93°EYixian — 41.54°N, 117.73°EYixian — 41.00°N, 117.49°EYixian — 41.19°N, 119.21°EYixian — 41.42°N, 118.97°EYixian — 41.54°N, 118.92°EYixian — 42.08°N, 116.56°EShanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°EBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WRott — 50.75°N, 7.26°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°ERott — 50.60°N, 7.25°ERott — 50.59°N, 7.24°EZaza — 53.30°N, 112.09°EZaza — 53.17°N, 111.77°EZaza — 53.20°N, 112.82°EGreen River — 42.17°N, 109.42°WGreen River — 39.94°N, 108.20°WGreen River — 39.98°N, 109.11°WGreen River — 39.60°N, 108.40°WGreen River — 39.35°N, 108.20°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 — 39.23°N, 108.22°WGreen River — 39.62°N, 108.01°WGreen River — 41.79°N, 110.74°WGreen River — 39.63°N, 108.15°WGreen River — 39.98°N, 109.18°WGreen River — 39.46°N, 108.41°WGreen River — 40.20°N, 108.97°WGreen River — 39.53°N, 107.95°WGreen River — 39.54°N, 108.12°WGreen River — 39.72°N, 108.14°WGreen River — 39.40°N, 108.21°WGreen River — 41.08°N, 109.26°WGreen River — 39.88°N, 109.15°WGreen River — 42.13°N, 110.13°WGreen River — 39.51°N, 108.03°WGreen River — 41.80°N, 110.75°WUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°EMessel — 49.93°N, 8.75°EForemost — 49.83°N, 111.70°WNiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°ENiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.55°N, 5.37°EEscucha — 40.80°N, 0.81°WEscucha — 42.64°N, 2.72°WEscucha — 41.03°N, 0.56°WKheta — 71.31°N, 99.56°EKheta — 72.03°N, 101.33°EKheta — 70.93°N, 98.64°EDzun-Bain — 45.45°N, 99.13°ESalt — 47.69°N, 7.53°EOla — 60.17°N, 150.49°EMadygen — 40.05°N, 70.21°EMadygen — 40.00°N, 70.20°ERaritan — 40.47°N, 74.32°WRaritan — 40.43°N, 74.33°WLaiyang — 36.78°N, 120.67°ELaiyang — 37.05°N, 120.81°ELaiyang — 36.76°N, 120.64°ECrato — 7.13°S, 39.70°WCrato — 7.18°S, 39.76°WArgiles d'lignite du Soissonnais — 49.33°N, 2.66°ETurga — 52.96°N, 117.78°ETurga — 50.83°N, 116.19°E

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The named rock units Hymenoptera has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 149 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 3,477 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Hymenoptera and its relatives

Eocene

Where Hymenoptera and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

8,102 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records at least 335 sites for Hymenoptera, 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

1,416 references

Each of the 6,576 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. 1,404 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 content3

Picture of Hymenoptera

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Bulimina aculeata · l-cb

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itHymenopterida through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Scopoli 1763