Cucujidae

The Cucujidae, or flat bark beetles, are a family of distinctively flat beetles found worldwide under the bark of dead trees. The family has received considerable taxonomic attention in recent years and now consists of 70 species distributed in five genera. It was indicated Cucujus species are scavengers, only feeding on pupae and larvae of other insects and on other subcortical beetles such as their own. Since the Cucujidae prey on larvae of potentially tree damaging beetles that spread fungal diseases, they are considered to be beneficial to the health of living trees.

Cucujidae

Alpsdake · 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
CucujoideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 113 million years on record.

The record covers at least 113.2 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 119.57 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Early Cretaceous — about 2 of 6 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 6 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 6 occurrencesEocene — about 2 of 6 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 6 occurrencesMiocene — about 0 of 6 occurrencesPliocene — about 1 of 6 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1 of 6 occurrences122–118 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences118–114 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences114–110 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences110–106 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences106–102 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences102–98 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences49–45 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences45–41 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences41–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–33 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences4.1–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences113.2 Mya129 ka122 Mya0 Mya

6 occurrences of Cucujidae on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. 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

6 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

4 formations

Escucha — 40.80°N, 0.81°WFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WCrato — 7.13°S, 39.70°WLa Huitrera — 41.16°S, 70.83°W

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The named rock units Cucujidae 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.

Cucujidae and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Cucujidae and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

372 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Cucujidae, 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

6 references

Each of the 6 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. 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 Cucujidae

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

No 3D scan of Cucujidae 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 itCucujoidea through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

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