Delphacidae
Delphacidae is a family of planthoppers containing about 2000 species, distributed worldwide. Delphacids are separated from other "hoppers" by the prominent spur on the tibia of the hindleg.

Desmond W. Helmore · 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
- DelphacoideaPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At least 43 million years on record.
The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 4.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 1.4 Mya.
6 occurrences of Delphacidae 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
6 occurrences- Eocene33%
- Oligocene17%
- Miocene33%
- Pliocene11%
- Pleistocene6%
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
- Wasatch Formation1
- Khutsin Formation1
- Rita Blanca Formation1
- Mazantic Shale Formation · Simojovel Group1
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Delphacidae 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.
Delphacidae and its relatives
EoceneWhere Delphacidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
271 taxa- Aeshnidae2 sites
- Carabidae2 sites
- Hemiptera2 sites
- Acalyptratae1 site
- Acanthomyites aldrichi1 site
- Aedes1 site
- Agonoscena marmorea1 site
- Aleochara (Aleochara) baltica1 site
- Aleocharinae1 site
- Alepia1 site
- Alumeda solorzanokraemerae1 site
- Amagua fortis1 site
- Ambericarda skalskii1 site
- Amblypsilopus1 site
- Amblypsilopus monicae1 site
- Ameletus1 site
- Anacaena1 site
- Anyphaenidae1 site
- Apocephalus chiapanecus1 site
- Apoidea1 site
- Araneae1 site
- Archipsocus1 site
- Azteca1 site
- Baba lapidea1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Delphacidae, 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- Systematic, palaeoecology, and palaeobiogeography of the insect fauna from Mexican amber1
- A fossil ugyopine planthopper from Baltic amber (Hemiptera: Fulgoroidea: Delphacidae)1
- Terrestrial insects of the Rita Blanca lake deposits1
- Treticnye ravokrylye Stravropol'ja1
- Fossil insects in the United States National Museum1
- Some Eocene Insects from Colorado and Wyoming1
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 Delphacidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Desmond W. Helmore
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Delphacidae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Delphacidae”
- 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 itDelphacoidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Leach 1815)