Gelechiidae

The Gelechiidae are a family of moths commonly referred to as twirler moths or gelechiid moths. They are the namesake family of the huge and little-studied superfamily Gelechioidea, and the family's taxonomy has been subject to considerable dispute. These are generally very small moths with narrow, fringed wings. The larvae of most species feed internally on various parts of their host plants, sometimes causing galls. Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga) is a host plant common to many species of the family, particularly of the genus Chionodes, which as a result is more diverse in North America than usual for Gelechioidea.

Gelechiidae

Bruce Marlin · CC BY 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
GelechioideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 10 million years on record.

The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 23.04 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 37.71 Mya to 15.98 Mya.

Eocene — about 3 of 4 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 4 occurrencesMiocene — about 1 of 4 occurrencesMiocene38–37 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences35–34 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences33.9 Mya23.04 Mya38.2 Mya15.5 Mya

4 occurrences of Gelechiidae on record. 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

4 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

1 formation

Mazantic Shale — 17.15°N, 92.70°W

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The named rock units Gelechiidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Found in the same rock

454 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Gelechiidae, 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

3 references

Each of the 4 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Gelechiidae

Credit
Bruce Marlin
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Gelechiidae 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 itGelechioidea through timeThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Stainton 1854