Aphidoidea

Aphids are small sap-sucking insects in the family Aphididae of the order Hemiptera. Common names include greenfly and blackfly, although individuals within a species can vary widely in color. The group includes the fluffy white woolly aphids. A typical life cycle involves flightless females giving live birth to female nymphs—who may also be already pregnant, an adaptation scientists call telescoping generations—without the involvement of males. Maturing rapidly, females breed profusely so that the number of these insects multiplies quickly. Winged females may develop later in the season, allowing the insects to colonize new plants. In temperate regions, a phase of sexual reproduction occurs in the autumn, with the insects often overwintering as eggs.

Aphidoidea

Alvesgaspar · CC BY-SA 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
AphidomorphaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 233 million years on record.

The record covers at least 237 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 239.48 Mya to 2.58 Mya.

Middle Triassic — about 1 of 337 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 337 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 1 of 337 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 337 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 2 of 337 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 52 of 337 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 21 of 337 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 3 of 337 occurrencesEocene — about 203 of 337 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 9 of 337 occurrencesMiocene — about 43 of 337 occurrencesPliocene — about 2 of 337 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 337 occurrences244–236 Mya — about 1 occurrence187–179 Mya — about 1 occurrence171–163 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences163–155 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences155–147 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences138–130 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences130–122 Mya — about 4 occurrences122–114 Mya — about 42 occurrences114–106 Mya — about 5 occurrences106–98 Mya — about 1 occurrence98–90 Mya — about 2 occurrences90–81 Mya — about 9 occurrences81–73 Mya — about 9 occurrences73–65 Mya — about 1 occurrence65–57 Mya — about 2 occurrences57–49 Mya — about 27 occurrences49–41 Mya — about 3 occurrences41–33 Mya — about 175 occurrences33–24 Mya — about 7 occurrences24–16 Mya — about 17 occurrences16–8.1 Mya — about 24 occurrences8.1–0 Mya — about 5 occurrences237 Mya3.6 Mya244 Mya0 Mya

337 occurrences of Aphidoidea 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

337 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

31 formations

Florissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WZaza — 53.30°N, 112.09°ELaiyang — 36.78°N, 120.67°ELaiyang — 36.76°N, 120.64°EBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WFur — 56.84°N, 8.96°EFur — 56.81°N, 9.18°EFur — 56.95°N, 8.88°EFur — 56.76°N, 9.11°EFur — 56.92°N, 8.92°EFur — 56.89°N, 8.82°EFur — 56.89°N, 8.67°EKheta — 71.31°N, 99.56°EKheta — 72.03°N, 101.33°EShanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°EOla — 60.17°N, 150.49°ECampagne-Calavon — 43.85°N, 5.58°EForemost — 49.83°N, 111.70°WDzun-Bain — 45.45°N, 99.13°ENiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°EChickaloon — 61.74°N, 148.95°WYixian — 41.15°N, 117.96°EYixian — 41.62°N, 120.83°EAustralian Creek — 52.97°N, 122.50°WKaragan — 45.05°N, 42.32°EWeald Clay — 51.13°N, 0.33°WTranquille — 50.13°N, 120.51°WGreen River — 41.55°N, 109.51°WUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°EBegichev — 72.18°N, 102.89°EHotont — 47.37°N, 102.39°EKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°EMoler — 56.84°N, 9.00°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Aphidoidea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 188 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Aphidoidea and its relatives

Eocene

Where Aphidoidea and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

3,776 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 110 sites for Aphidoidea, 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

92 references

Each of the 337 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. 80 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 Aphidoidea

Credit
Alvesgaspar
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Aphidoidea 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 itAphidomorpha through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

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