Melolontha melolontha

The common cockchafer, known colloquially as the Maybug, Maybeetle, or doodlebug, among many other names, is a species of scarab beetle belonging to the genus Melolontha. It is native to Europe, and it is also one of the several closely-related and morphologically similar species of Melolontha called cockchafers, alongside Melolontha hippocastani as the latter also shows sexual dimorphism, mating practices, and key physical features such as the number of lamellae. M. hippocastani is a historically divergent species as compared to M. melolontha.

Melolontha melolontha

Frank Vassen from Brussels, Belgium · 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
MelolonthaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At most 645 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 774 ka and 129 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 4 of 4 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 4 occurrences807 ka–764 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences764 ka–722 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences722 ka–679 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences679 ka–637 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences637 ka–595 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences595 ka–552 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences552 ka–510 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences510 ka–467 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences467 ka–425 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences425 ka–382 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences382 ka–340 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences340 ka–297 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences297 ka–255 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences255 ka–212 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences212 ka–170 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences170 ka–127 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.27 Mya0 Mya

4 occurrences of Melolontha melolontha on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

4 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

1 formation

Highbury Silts and Sands — 51.56°N, 0.06°W

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The named rock units Melolontha melolontha has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Melolontha melolontha and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Melolontha melolontha and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

200 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Melolontha melolontha, 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

1 reference

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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Melolontha melolontha

Credit
Frank Vassen from Brussels, Belgium
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itMelolontha through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)