Archisargoidea

Archisargoidea is an extinct superfamily of brachyceran flies known from the late Middle Jurassic (Callovian) to early Late Cretaceous (Turonian). Most flies in the superfamily have large eyes and an elongated abdomen, preserved females have a sharp, piercing oviscapt used for injecting eggs into host matter. Their relationships with other members of Brachycera is controversial, they are usually considered close relatives of either Stratiomyomorpha or Muscomorpha. Internal relationships between the families are uncertain and the topology of the only cladistic analysis of the family was weakly supported, finding that Archisargidae was paraphyletic with respect to Eremochaetidae and miniaturized Tethepomyiidae. The sharp piercing oviscaps possessed by the group had alternatively been suggested to represent evidence of being parasitoids, injecting their eggs into hosts similar to parasitic wasps, or to inject eggs into plant material like rotting wood or fruit, similar to members of Tephritoidea.

Archisargoidea

Qingqing Zhang, Junfeng Zhang · 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
BrachyceraPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 60 million years on record.

The record covers at least 154.8 Mya to 93.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 165.3 Mya to 89.8 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 17 of 111 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 60 of 111 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 28 of 111 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 6 of 111 occurrencesLate Cretaceous167–164 Mya — about 5 occurrences164–162 Mya — about 11 occurrences162–159 Mya — about 11 occurrences159–156 Mya — about 11 occurrences156–154 Mya — about 12 occurrences154–151 Mya — about 12 occurrences151–148 Mya — about 9 occurrences148–146 Mya — about 2 occurrences146–143 Mya — about 2 occurrences143–141 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences128–125 Mya — about 3 occurrences125–122 Mya — about 8 occurrences122–120 Mya — about 6 occurrences120–117 Mya — about 4 occurrences117–114 Mya — about 4 occurrences114–112 Mya — about 2 occurrences107–104 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences104–101 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences101–99 Mya — about 2 occurrences99–96 Mya — about 2 occurrences96–94 Mya — about 2 occurrences94–91 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences91–88 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences154.8 Mya93.9 Mya167 Mya88 Mya

111 occurrences of Archisargoidea on record, most of them in the Late Jurassic. 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

111 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

14 formations

Daohugou — 41.32°N, 119.24°EKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°EKarabastau — 42.95°N, 69.92°EKarabastau — 42.69°N, 70.41°EYixian — 41.03°N, 118.92°EYixian — 41.62°N, 120.83°EHaifanggou — 41.85°N, 120.79°EZaza — 53.30°N, 112.09°ESharteg — 44.14°N, 95.78°EGurvan-Eren — 46.38°N, 93.95°EEscucha — 42.64°N, 2.72°WLaiyang — 36.78°N, 120.67°ERaritan — 40.47°N, 74.32°WTurga — 50.83°N, 116.19°EDzun-Bain — 45.45°N, 99.13°EUlaan-Ereg — 45.59°N, 107.79°EShinekhudag — 44.72°N, 107.92°E

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The named rock units Archisargoidea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Archisargoidea and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Archisargoidea and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

3,526 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 38 sites for Archisargoidea, and this reads all of them. 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

36 references

Each of the 111 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. 24 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 Archisargoidea

Credit
Qingqing Zhang, Junfeng Zhang
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Archisargoidea 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 itBrachycera through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Rohdendorf 1962