Forficula

Forficula is a genus of earwigs in the family Forficulidae; it was first described in 1758 by Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae. The name Forficula is Latin for earwig, formerly small pinchers. The genus spans all continents except Antarctica and is native to Afro-Eurasia, primarily Europe. The best known species is Forficula auricularia and is a common household pest.

Forficula

ArtMechanic · 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
ForficulinaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 46 million years on record.

The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 1.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 129 ka.

Paleocene — about 0 of 20 occurrencesEocene — about 13 of 20 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 4 of 20 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 2 of 20 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 20 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1 of 20 occurrences57–55 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences55–53 Mya — about 2 occurrences53–51 Mya — about 2 occurrences51–50 Mya — about 2 occurrences50–48 Mya — about 1 occurrence48–46 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences46–44 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences44–42 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences42–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–36 Mya — about 2 occurrences36–34 Mya — about 2 occurrences34–32 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences32–30 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences30–29 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences29–27 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences27–25 Mya — about 1 occurrence25–23 Mya — about 1 occurrence13–11 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.9–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence48.07 Mya1.8 Mya57 Mya0 Mya

20 occurrences of Forficula 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

20 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

7 formations

Ølst — 56.84°N, 8.96°ENiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°EUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°EEifel — 50.11°N, 6.82°ECastle Eden Fissure-Fill — 54.74°N, 1.33°WFur — 56.90°N, 8.75°EMoler — 56.84°N, 9.00°E

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The named rock units Forficula has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Forficula and its relatives

Eocene

Where Forficula and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

912 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 16 sites for Forficula, 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

8 references

Each of the 20 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 content2

Picture of Forficula

Credit
ArtMechanic
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 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 itForficulinae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

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