Histeridae

Histeridae is a family of beetles commonly known as clown beetles or hister beetles. There are more than 410 genera and 4,800 described species in Histeridae worldwide, with more than 500 species in North America. They can be identified by their shortened elytra, which leave two tergites exposed, and also by their elbowed antennae with clubbed ends. These predatory feeders are most active at night and will fake death if threatened. Hister beetles occupy almost any kind of niche throughout the world. They have also been useful for estimation of time of death during forensic investigations. Also, certain species are used for controlling houseflies and livestock pests that infest dung.

Histeridae

Edmund Reitter · Public Domain · 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
clown beetlePBDB
Sits inside
HisteroideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 121 million years on record.

The record covers at least 121.4 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 125.77 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Early Cretaceous — about 3 of 73 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 31 of 73 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 73 occurrencesEocene — about 9 of 73 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 73 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 10 of 73 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 73 occurrencesPleistocene — about 18 of 73 occurrences128–124 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences115–111 Mya — about 1 occurrence111–107 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences103–98 Mya — about 10 occurrences98–94 Mya — about 20 occurrences94–90 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences38–34 Mya — about 8 occurrences34–30 Mya — about 1 occurrence30–26 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences26–21 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 1 occurrence17–13 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences13–8.6 Mya — about 8 occurrences4.3–0 Mya — about 19 occurrences121.4 Mya129 ka128 Mya0 Mya

73 occurrences of Histeridae on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

73 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

Highbury Silts and Sands — 51.56°N, 0.06°WUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°ESystem B — 19.01°S, 138.67°EOyama — 33.25°N, 130.96°EMizozono — 31.98°N, 130.74°ECampagne-Calavon — 43.85°N, 5.58°EYixian — 41.62°N, 120.83°E

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The named rock units Histeridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 48 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Histeridae and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Histeridae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

3,327 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 39 sites for Histeridae, 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

33 references

Each of the 73 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. 21 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 Histeridae

Credit
Edmund Reitter
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Histeridae 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 itHisteroidea through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gyllenhal 1808