Aphididae

The Aphididae are a very large insect family in the aphid superfamily (Aphidoidea), of the order Hemiptera. These insects suck the sap from plant leaves. Several thousand species are placed in this family, many of which are considered plant/crop pests. They are the family of insects containing most plant virus vectors with the green peach aphid being one of the most prevalent and indiscriminate carriers.

Aphididae

Claudio Gratton, University of Wisconsin · Attribution · 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
aphidPBDB
Sits inside
AphidoideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 117 million years on record.

The record covers at least 121.4 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 125.77 Mya to 2.58 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 5 of 255 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 6 of 255 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 255 occurrencesEocene — about 192 of 255 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 8 of 255 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 42 of 255 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 2 of 255 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 255 occurrences128–124 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 1 occurrence120–115 Mya — about 2 occurrences115–111 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences111–107 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences107–103 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences103–98 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences98–94 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences94–90 Mya — about 1 occurrence90–86 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences86–81 Mya — about 3 occurrences81–77 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences77–73 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences73–68 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences60–56 Mya — about 1 occurrence56–51 Mya — about 14 occurrences51–47 Mya — about 12 occurrences47–43 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences39–34 Mya — about 148 occurrences34–30 Mya — about 20 occurrences30–26 Mya — about 3 occurrences26–21 Mya — about 3 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 12 occurrences17–13 Mya — about 17 occurrences13–8.7 Mya — about 10 occurrences8.7–4.4 Mya — about 2 occurrences4.4–116 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences121.4 Mya3.6 Mya128 Mya116 ka

255 occurrences of Aphididae 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

255 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

19 formations

Florissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WFur — 56.84°N, 8.96°EFur — 56.81°N, 9.18°EFur — 56.95°N, 8.88°EFur — 56.92°N, 8.92°EFur — 56.89°N, 8.82°EFur — 56.89°N, 8.67°EShanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°ECampagne-Calavon — 43.85°N, 5.58°EKheta — 71.31°N, 99.56°EKaragan — 45.05°N, 42.32°ENiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°ELaiyang — 36.78°N, 120.67°ETranquille — 50.13°N, 120.51°WGreen River — 41.55°N, 109.51°WUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°EForemost — 49.83°N, 111.70°WBegichev — 72.18°N, 102.89°EMoler — 56.84°N, 9.00°EMasaragawa — 38.25°N, 138.41°ESkarðsströnd–Mókollsdalur — 65.51°N, 21.53°WShahejie — 37.87°N, 118.79°EDzun-Bain — 45.45°N, 99.13°E

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The named rock units Aphididae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 177 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Aphididae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Aphididae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

3,689 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 76 sites for Aphididae, and this reads all 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

58 references

Each of the 255 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. 46 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 Aphididae

Credit
Claudio Gratton, University of Wisconsin
Licence
Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Aphididae 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 itAphidoidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

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