Mastotermes

Mastotermes is a genus of termites. The sole living species is Mastotermes darwiniensis, found only in northern Australia. A number of extinct taxa are known from fossils. It is a very peculiar insect, the most primitive termite alive. As such, it shows notable similarities to cockroaches in the family Cryptocercidae, the termites' closest relatives. These similarities include the anal lobe of the wing and the laying of eggs in bunches, rather than singly. The termites were traditionally placed in the Exopterygota, but such an indiscriminate treatment makes that group a paraphyletic grade of basal neopterans. Thus, the cockroaches, termites and their relatives are nowadays placed in a clade called Dictyoptera.

Mastotermes

division, CSIRO · CC BY 3.0 · 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
MastotermitinaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 109 million years on record.

The record covers at least 121.4 Mya to 11.63 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 125.77 Mya to 5.333 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 2 of 35 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 3 of 35 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 35 occurrencesEocene — about 6 of 35 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 4 of 35 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 20 of 35 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 35 occurrences128–124 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences116–111 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences111–107 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences103–99 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences99–95 Mya — about 2 occurrences95–91 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences57–53 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences53–49 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences49–45 Mya — about 1 occurrence45–41 Mya — about 1 occurrence41–36 Mya — about 1 occurrence36–32 Mya — about 2 occurrences28–24 Mya — about 3 occurrences24–20 Mya — about 7 occurrences20–15 Mya — about 7 occurrences15–11 Mya — about 6 occurrences11–7.1 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences7.1–2.9 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences121.4 Mya11.63 Mya128 Mya3 Mya

35 occurrences of Mastotermes on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

35 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

Bouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WNiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°EEifel — 50.11°N, 6.82°EPoole — 50.67°N, 2.09°WDoronino — 51.99°N, 113.24°EArgiles d'lignite du Soissonnais — 49.33°N, 2.66°EFonseca — 20.16°S, 43.30°W

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The named rock units Mastotermes has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 26 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Mastotermes and its relatives

Miocene

Where Mastotermes and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

1,254 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 30 sites for Mastotermes, 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 35 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 Mastotermes

Credit
division, CSIRO
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Mastotermes was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itMastotermitinae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Froggatt 1897