Heterosilpha ramosa
Heterosilpha ramosa, the garden carrion beetle, is a species of carrion beetle in the family Silphidae. It is found in Central America and North America.

Greg Schechter from San Francisco, USA · CC BY 2.0 · 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
- HeterosilphaPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At least 1.6 million years on record.
The record covers at least 1.8 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 11.7 ka.
4 occurrences of Heterosilpha ramosa on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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
4 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
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
2 formations
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The named rock units Heterosilpha ramosa has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Heterosilpha ramosa and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Heterosilpha ramosa and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
174 taxa- Thanatophilus lapponicus3 sites
- Agabus2 sites
- Antigone canadensis2 sites
- Apsena laticornis2 sites
- Apsena pubescens2 sites
- Bembidion2 sites
- Bledius2 sites
- Cicindela oregona2 sites
- Coniontis abdominalis2 sites
- Coniontis abdominalis caseyi2 sites
- Coniontis robusta2 sites
- Grus pagei2 sites
- Nicrophorus marginatus2 sites
- Nyctoporis carinata2 sites
- Oraristrix brea2 sites
- Acidota crenata1 site
- Aclypea bituberosa1 site
- Aegialia (Psammoporus) terminalis1 site
- Aegialia lacustris1 site
- Agabus (Gaurodytes) affinis1 site
- Agonum (Europhilus)1 site
- Agonum (Olisares) cupreum1 site
- Altica lazulina1 site
- Amara conflata1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Heterosilpha ramosa, 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- Fossil arthropods of California 17. The silphid burying beetles in the asphalt deposits2
- The paleoenvironment of the Olympia beds based on fossil beetles from Discovery Park, Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.1
- Palaeoentomology of the Kap København Formation, a Plio-Pleistocene sequence in Peary Land, North Greenland1
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. 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 Heterosilpha ramosa
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Greg Schechter from San Francisco, USA
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- 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 itHeterosilpha through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Say 1823)