Forcipomyia

Forcipomyia is a genus of biting midges in the subfamily Forcipomyiinae. Species of the subgenus Lasiohelea suck vertebrate blood. Some species are ectoparasites on larger insects. Other species in the genus are important pollinators of the cacao tree. There are at least 1,000 described species in Forcipomyia.

Forcipomyia

Pristurus · 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
Sits inside
ForcipomyiiniPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 27 million years on record.

The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 20.45 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 13.82 Mya.

Paleocene — about 0 of 122 occurrencesEocene — about 72 of 122 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 122 occurrencesMiocene — about 50 of 122 occurrencesMiocene57–55 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences55–54 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences52–51 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences51–50 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences50–48 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences48–47 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences47–45 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences45–44 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences44–42 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences42–41 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences38–36 Mya — about 22 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 25 occurrences35–33 Mya — about 17 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 2 occurrences22–20 Mya — about 3 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 11 occurrences19–17 Mya — about 11 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 11 occurrences16–14 Mya — about 9 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 4 occurrences48.07 Mya20.45 Mya56.8 Mya13 Mya

122 occurrences of Forcipomyia 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

122 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

6 formations

Naibuchi — 47.44°N, 142.76°EMazantic Shale — 17.15°N, 92.72°WYanigua — 18.98°N, 69.45°WLa Toca — 19.55°N, 70.61°WDunstan — 45.48°S, 169.31°EArgiles d'lignite du Soissonnais — 49.33°N, 2.66°E

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The named rock units Forcipomyia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 106 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Forcipomyia and its relatives

Eocene

Where Forcipomyia and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

3,232 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 34 sites for Forcipomyia, 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

13 references

Each of the 122 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. 1 further reference is 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 Forcipomyia

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

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itForcipomyiini through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Meigen 1818)