Inocelliidae
Inocelliidae is a small family of snakeflies containing 8 genera of which one is known only from fossils. They are commonly known as inocelliid snakeflies. The largest known species is Fibla carpenteri known from fossils found in baltic amber.

Syrio · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
- NeoraphidiopteraPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At least 147 million years on record.
The record covers at least 154.8 Mya to 7.246 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 165.3 Mya to 5.09 Mya.
11 occurrences of Inocelliidae 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
11 occurrences- Middle Jurassic3%
- Late Jurassic6%
- Eocene73%
- Miocene18%
- Plioceneunder 1%
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
3 formations
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The named rock units Inocelliidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Inocelliidae and its relatives
EoceneWhere Inocelliidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
260 taxa- Apis2 sites
- Ctenobethylus goepperti2 sites
- Eomatachia latifrons2 sites
- Fibla erigena2 sites
- Formica flori2 sites
- Gesomyrmex hoernesi2 sites
- Lasius schiefferdeckeri2 sites
- Prenolepis henschei2 sites
- Sussudio boreus2 sites
- Yantaromyrmex geinitzi2 sites
- Ablator plumosus1 site
- Acartophthalmites willii1 site
- Acrometa cristata1 site
- Acrometa succini1 site
- Adamsochrysa1 site
- Aenigmatias tertiarius1 site
- Aeshna cerdanica1 site
- Almolinus ligula1 site
- Amberofulvius dentatus1 site
- Anacanthobracon femorator1 site
- Anandrus inermis1 site
- Anandrus infelix1 site
- Aneurina oligocoenica1 site
- Aneurobaeus collaris1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Inocelliidae, 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
9 references- Nouveaux Raphidioptères fossiles du Cénozoïque de France et d'Espagne2
- The Baltic amber snake-flies (Neuroptera)2
- Fossil Neuropterida (Insecta: Neuroptera and Raphidioptera) from the middle Eocene Kishenehn Formation, Montana, USA1
- The oldest Inocelliidae (Raphidioptera) from the Eocene of western North America1
- Two significant new snakeflies from Baltic amber, with discussion on autapomorphies of the order and its included taxa (Raphidioptera)1
- A New Fossil Snake-Fly Species from Baltic Amber (Raphidioptera: Inocelliidae)1
- Early Mesozoic insects fossils from western Liaoning1
- A New Fossil Inocellia (Neuroptera) from Florissant1
- Die im Bernstein befindlichen Neuropteren der Vorwelt1
Each of the 11 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 Inocelliidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Syrio
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Inocelliidae 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 itNeoraphidioptera through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Navas 1913