Apidae

Apidae is the largest family within the superfamily Apoidea, containing at least 5700 species of bees. The family includes some of the most commonly seen bees, including bumblebees and honey bees, but also includes stingless bees, carpenter bees, orchid bees, cuckoo bees, and a number of other less widely known groups. Many are valuable pollinators in natural habitats and for agricultural crops.

Apidae

Ivar Leidus · 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
AnthophilaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 65 million years on record.

The record covers at least 66 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 72.2 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 1 of 265 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 2 of 265 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 116 of 265 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 27 of 265 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 100 of 265 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 265 occurrencesPleistocene — about 2 of 265 occurrences74–71 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences71–69 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences69–66 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences66–64 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences64–61 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences61–59 Mya — about 2 occurrences56–54 Mya — about 2 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 2 occurrences52–49 Mya — about 2 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 4 occurrences47–44 Mya — about 6 occurrences44–42 Mya — about 6 occurrences42–39 Mya — about 2 occurrences39–37 Mya — about 20 occurrences37–34 Mya — about 60 occurrences34–32 Mya — about 13 occurrences32–29 Mya — about 2 occurrences29–27 Mya — about 3 occurrences27–25 Mya — about 12 occurrences25–22 Mya — about 9 occurrences22–20 Mya — about 8 occurrences20–17 Mya — about 16 occurrences17–15 Mya — about 25 occurrences15–12 Mya — about 22 occurrences12–9.8 Mya — about 14 occurrences9.8–7.4 Mya — about 5 occurrences7.4–4.9 Mya — about 9 occurrences4.9–2.5 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences2.5–0 Mya — about 18 occurrences66 Mya11.7 ka74 Mya0 Mya

265 occurrences of Apidae 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

265 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

23 formations

Randeck Maar — 48.57°N, 9.53°EUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°EEifel — 50.11°N, 6.82°EShanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°EFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WMessel — 49.93°N, 8.75°ENiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°ECampagne-Calavon — 43.85°N, 5.58°EMost — 50.57°N, 13.73°EMenat — 46.10°N, 2.90°ELatah — 46.53°N, 116.79°WLatah — 47.61°N, 117.43°WChojabaru — 33.78°N, 129.80°EBotchi — 47.99°N, 139.45°EHydrobienkalk — 50.04°N, 8.24°ECypris — 50.08°N, 12.54°ECastle Eden Fissure-Fill — 54.74°N, 1.33°WThermalsinterkalk — 48.41°N, 9.55°EBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WGreen River — 40.03°N, 109.19°WHuazhige — 23.02°N, 104.38°EMiyajima — 36.98°N, 139.82°EHaruki — 35.50°N, 134.44°E

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The named rock units Apidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 164 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Apidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Apidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

3,909 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 132 sites for Apidae, 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

100 references

Each of the 265 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. 88 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 Apidae

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

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itAnthophila through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

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