Bombylius

Bombylius is a large genus of flies belonging to the family Bombyliidae. They are known as the bee-flies, due to their striking resemblance to bees and bumblebees, and are distributed worldwide. One species of the genus, Bombylius major, is widely distributed throughout the northern hemisphere and is very well known.

Bombylius

Richard Bartz , Munich aka Makro Freak · CC BY-SA 2.5 · 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
BombyliiniPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 15 million years on record.

The record covers at least 23.04 Mya to 7.246 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 27.3 Mya to 5.333 Mya.

Oligocene — about 1 of 3 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 2 of 3 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 3 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences7.9–7.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.1–6.4 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences6.4–5.6 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences5.6–4.8 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences23.04 Mya7.246 Mya27.8 Mya4.8 Mya

3 occurrences of Bombylius on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

3 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

1 formation

Niveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Bombylius has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Bombylius and its relatives

Miocene

Where Bombylius and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

128 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Bombylius, 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

2 references

Each of the 3 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Bombylius

Credit
Richard Bartz , Munich aka Makro Freak
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Bombylius 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 itBombyliini through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758