Hydraenidae

Hydraenidae is a family of very small aquatic beetles, sometimes called "Minute moss beetles", with a worldwide distribution. They are around 0.8 to 3.3 mm in length. The adults store air on the underside of the body as well as beneath the elytra which allows them to crawl underwater, often on the underside of the water surface tension, though they cannot swim. Some species have gills that effectively allow them to stay underwater indefinitely. Larvae vary from being fully terrestrial, to being aquatic at least in their earliest instars. The diet of hydraenid larvae and adults is thought to consist of algae, spores and other plant matter. At least some hydraenid adults use stridulation to communicate. There are around 1,300 species in 42 genera.

Hydraenidae

The original uploader was Loggi at German Wikipedia . · 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
minute moss beetlePBDB
Sits inside
StaphylinoideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 184 million years on record.

The record covers at least 184.2 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 192.9 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Early Jurassic — about 1 of 80 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 80 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 4 of 80 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 3 of 80 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 1 of 80 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 1 of 80 occurrencesEocene — about 10 of 80 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 80 occurrencesMiocene — about 0 of 80 occurrencesPliocene — about 0 of 80 occurrencesPleistocene — about 59 of 80 occurrences197–190 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences190–184 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences164–157 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences157–151 Mya — about 1 occurrence151–144 Mya — about 2 occurrences144–138 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences125–118 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences118–111 Mya — about 2 occurrences111–105 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences105–98 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences98–92 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences72–66 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences66–59 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences39–33 Mya — about 10 occurrences33–26 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences26–20 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences6.6–0 Mya — about 59 occurrences184.2 Mya129 ka197 Mya0 Mya

80 occurrences of Hydraenidae 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

80 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

14 formations

Highbury Silts and Sands — 51.56°N, 0.06°WTitusville Till — 41.62°N, 79.64°WBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WOlympia beds — 47.66°N, 122.43°WSharteg — 44.14°N, 95.77°EBembridge Marls — 50.74°N, 1.36°WFirkanten — 78.10°N, 14.20°EIchetuy — 51.27°N, 108.10°EKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°EAbasheva — 54.50°N, 87.53°ECastle Eden Fissure-Fill — 54.74°N, 1.33°WMogotuin — 44.12°N, 106.92°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°EQuadra Sand — 49.29°N, 122.88°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Hydraenidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 29 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Hydraenidae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Hydraenidae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

2,005 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 52 sites for Hydraenidae, 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

21 references

Each of the 80 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. 9 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 Hydraenidae

Credit
The original uploader was Loggi at German Wikipedia .
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Hydraenidae 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 itStaphylinoidea through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Mulsant 1844