Hemerobiidae

Hemerobiidae is a family of Neuropteran insects commonly known as brown lacewings, comprising about 500 species in 28 genera. Most are yellow to dark brown, but some species are green. They are small; most have forewings 4–10 mm long. These insects differ from the somewhat similar Chrysopidae not only by the usual coloring but also by the wing venation: hemerobiids differ from chrysopids in having numerous long veins and forked costal cross veins. Some genera are widespread, but most are restricted to a single biogeographical realm. Some species have reduced wings to the degree that they are flightless. Imagines (adults) of subfamily Drepanepteryginae mimic dead leaves. Hemerobiid larvae are usually less hairy than chrysopid larvae.

Hemerobiidae

Uncredited · Attribution · 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
brown lacewingPBDB
Sits inside
HemerobioideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 133 million years on record.

The record covers at least 149.2 Mya to 15.98 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 154.8 Mya to 11.63 Mya.

Late Jurassic — about 1 of 64 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 4 of 64 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 7 of 64 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 64 occurrencesEocene — about 41 of 64 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 64 occurrencesMiocene — about 10 of 64 occurrencesMiocene158–153 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences153–148 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences143–138 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences138–133 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences123–118 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences118–113 Mya — about 2 occurrences103–98 Mya — about 1 occurrence98–93 Mya — about 3 occurrences88–83 Mya — about 1 occurrence83–78 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences78–73 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences73–68 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences58–53 Mya — about 3 occurrences53–48 Mya — about 7 occurrences48–44 Mya — about 3 occurrences44–39 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences39–34 Mya — about 27 occurrences29–24 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences24–19 Mya — about 1 occurrence19–14 Mya — about 6 occurrences14–8.8 Mya — about 3 occurrences149.2 Mya15.98 Mya158 Mya9 Mya

64 occurrences of Hemerobiidae 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

64 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

19 formations

Bouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WBembridge Marls — 50.75°N, 1.34°WBembridge Marls — 50.73°N, 1.39°WTadushi — 44.26°N, 135.30°EGreen River — 39.53°N, 107.95°WGreen River — 39.64°N, 108.76°WCrato — 7.13°S, 39.70°WTranquille — 50.13°N, 120.51°WKlondike Mountain — 48.66°N, 118.75°WKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°EKheta — 71.31°N, 99.56°EOla — 60.17°N, 150.49°EDzun-Bain — 45.45°N, 99.13°EAustralian Creek — 52.97°N, 122.50°WForemost — 49.83°N, 111.70°WDurlston — 50.60°N, 1.95°WKizi — 45.48°N, 137.21°EMoler — 56.84°N, 9.00°EFur — 56.92°N, 8.83°EGarang — 35.35°N, 101.64°EKishenehn — 48.39°N, 113.70°W

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The named rock units Hemerobiidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 33 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Hemerobiidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Hemerobiidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

3,591 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 46 sites for Hemerobiidae, 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

32 references

Each of the 64 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. 20 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 Hemerobiidae

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itHemerobioidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Latreille 1802