Gerridae

The Gerridae are a family of insects in the order Hemiptera, commonly known as water striders, water skeeters, water scooters, water bugs, pond skaters, water skippers, water gliders, water skimmers or puddle flies. They are true bugs of the suborder Heteroptera and have mouthparts evolved for piercing and sucking. A distinguishing feature is the ability to move on top of the water's surface, making them pleuston (surface-living) animals. They can be found on most ponds, rivers or lakes, and over 1,700 species of gerrids have been described, 10% of them being marine.

Gerridae

Uncredited · 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
Also called
water striderPBDB
Sits inside
GerroideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 100 million years on record.

The record covers at least 100.5 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 106.3 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 65 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 65 occurrencesPaleocene — about 2 of 65 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 50 of 65 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 5 of 65 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 6 of 65 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 65 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1 of 65 occurrences108–105 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences105–101 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences101–98 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences65–61 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences61–58 Mya — about 2 occurrences58–54 Mya — about 6 occurrences54–51 Mya — about 13 occurrences51–47 Mya — about 10 occurrences47–43 Mya — about 4 occurrences43–40 Mya — about 2 occurrences40–36 Mya — about 5 occurrences36–33 Mya — about 9 occurrences33–29 Mya — about 3 occurrences29–25 Mya — about 1 occurrence25–22 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences22–18 Mya — about 1 occurrence18–14 Mya — about 2 occurrences14–11 Mya — about 2 occurrences11–7.2 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences7.2–3.6 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences3.6–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence100.5 Mya129 ka108 Mya0 Mya

65 occurrences of Gerridae on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

65 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

20 formations

Fur — 56.92°N, 8.92°EFur — 56.89°N, 8.67°EFur — 56.95°N, 8.88°EFur — 56.90°N, 8.79°EØlst — 56.84°N, 9.00°EEifel — 50.11°N, 6.82°EFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WNiubao — 32.02°N, 89.77°ENiubao — 31.80°N, 87.76°ETranquille — 50.13°N, 120.51°WGreen River — 41.82°N, 110.76°WGreen River — 42.13°N, 110.13°WMessel — 49.93°N, 8.75°EMenat — 46.10°N, 2.90°EAllenby — 49.45°N, 120.59°WPesciara — 45.60°N, 11.20°ESalt — 47.69°N, 7.53°ENove Sedlo — 50.63°N, 14.16°ERenova — 45.21°N, 112.18°WRott — 50.75°N, 7.26°EUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°EYanigua — 18.98°N, 69.45°WOlympia beds — 47.66°N, 122.43°WBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WMae Sot — 19.29°N, 99.63°E

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The named rock units Gerridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 16 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Gerridae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Gerridae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

2,406 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 54 sites for Gerridae, 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

29 references

Each of the 65 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. 17 further references are 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 Gerridae

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Gerridae 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 itGerroidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Leach 1815