Collembola

Springtails form the largest of the three lineages of modern hexapods that are no longer considered insects, the others being Protura and Diplura. Although the three lineages are sometimes grouped together in a class called Entognatha because they have internal mouthparts, they do not appear to be any more closely related to one another than they are to insects, which have external mouthparts. There are more than 9,000 species worldwide.

Collembola

Mvuijlst · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
springtailPBDB
Sits inside
EllipuraPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 394 million years on record.

The record covers at least 410.62 Mya to 15.98 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 413.02 Mya to 13.82 Mya.

Silurian — about 0 of 225 occurrencesDevonian — about 2 of 225 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 0 of 225 occurrencesPermian — about 1 of 225 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 225 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 225 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 225 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 225 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 225 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 225 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 17 of 225 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 42 of 225 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 225 occurrencesEocene — about 94 of 225 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 225 occurrencesMiocene — about 69 of 225 occurrences421–407 Mya — about 2 occurrences296–283 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences283–269 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences130–117 Mya — about 1 occurrence117–103 Mya — about 10 occurrences103–89 Mya — about 33 occurrences89–75 Mya — about 11 occurrences75–61 Mya — about 4 occurrences47–34 Mya — about 94 occurrences34–20 Mya — about 17 occurrences20–5.8 Mya — about 52 occurrences410.62 Mya15.98 Mya421 Mya6 Mya

225 occurrences of Collembola 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

225 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

9 formations

Escucha — 42.64°N, 2.72°WForemost — 49.83°N, 111.70°WMazantic Shale — 17.15°N, 92.72°WBarstow — 34.95°N, 116.83°WBarstow — 34.94°N, 116.83°WDryden Flags — 57.34°N, 2.85°WDunstan — 45.48°S, 169.31°ELa Toca — 19.22°N, 70.67°WVryheid — 25.50°S, 28.50°EHollín — 0.71°S, 77.79°W

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The named rock units Collembola has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 183 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Collembola and its relatives

Eocene

Where Collembola and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

2,849 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 48 sites for Collembola, 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

30 references

Each of the 225 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. 16 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 content2

Picture of Collembola

Credit
Mvuijlst
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itEllipura through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Lubbock 1871)