Belostomatidae

Belostomatidae is a family of freshwater hemipteran insects known as giant water bugs or colloquially as toe-biters, Indian toe-biters, electric-light bugs, alligator ticks, or alligator fleas. They are the largest insects in the order Hemiptera. There are about 170 species found in freshwater habitats worldwide, with more than 110 in the Neotropics, more than 20 in Africa, almost as many in the Nearctic, and far fewer elsewhere. These predators are typically encountered in freshwater ponds, marshes and slow-flowing streams. Most species are at least 2 cm (0.8 in) long, although smaller species, down to 0.9 cm (0.35 in), also exist. The largest are members of the genus Lethocerus, which can exceed 12 cm (4.5 in) and nearly reach the length of some of the largest beetles in the world. Giant water bugs are a popular food in parts of Asia.

Belostomatidae

Jhou5 · 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
Also called
giant water bugPBDB
Sits inside
NepoideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 205 million years on record.

The record covers at least 205.7 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 227.3 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Triassic — about 1 of 57 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 3 of 57 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 1 of 57 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 21 of 57 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 14 of 57 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 1 of 57 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 1 of 57 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 57 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 3 of 57 occurrencesMiocene — about 9 of 57 occurrencesPliocene — about 0 of 57 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 57 occurrences232–224 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences224–216 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences216–209 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences209–201 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences201–193 Mya — about 3 occurrences193–185 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences170–162 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences162–155 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences155–147 Mya — about 12 occurrences147–139 Mya — about 9 occurrences139–131 Mya — about 1 occurrence131–124 Mya — about 3 occurrences124–116 Mya — about 6 occurrences116–108 Mya — about 4 occurrences108–100 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences100–93 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences62–54 Mya — about 1 occurrence39–31 Mya — about 1 occurrence31–23 Mya — about 2 occurrences23–15 Mya — about 5 occurrences15–7.7 Mya — about 3 occurrences7.7–0 Mya — about 3 occurrences205.7 Mya11.7 ka232 Mya0 Mya

57 occurrences of Belostomatidae on record, most of them in the Late Jurassic. 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

57 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

18 formations

Solnhofen — 48.91°N, 11.14°ECrato — 7.13°S, 39.70°WShanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°EUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°ELa Huérguina — 40.13°N, 2.01°WLa Huérguina — 40.06°N, 1.88°WSierra Madre — 16.68°N, 93.46°WCharmouth Mudstone — 50.73°N, 2.89°WZagaje — 51.13°N, 20.66°ETodilto — 35.50°N, 106.75°WÚstí — 50.76°N, 14.24°EHuachi-Huanhe — 35.13°N, 106.82°EDzun-Bain — 45.45°N, 99.13°ERott — 50.60°N, 7.25°EWeald Clay — 51.14°N, 0.33°WAbrosimovka — 56.88°N, 74.57°EPaskapoo — 52.35°N, 113.76°WCow Branch — 36.54°N, 79.67°WBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°W

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The named rock units Belostomatidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 10 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Belostomatidae and its relatives

Late Jurassic

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

Found in the same rock

1,548 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 45 sites for Belostomatidae, 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 57 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 Belostomatidae

Credit
Jhou5
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Belostomatidae 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 itNepoidea through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Leach 1815