Metachroma
Metachroma is a genus of leaf beetles in the subfamily Eumolpinae. It is distributed from Ontario, Canada to Mendoza, Argentina, including the Antilles. It has also been suggested that the genus extends to the Pacific Islands, though this is not confirmed. There are about 140 described species in Metachroma, 40 of which are found north of Mexico. An extinct species is also known from the Eocene of the United States.

(c) Justin Williams, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC BY 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
- EumolpinaePBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At least 13 million years on record.
The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 20.45 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 37 Mya to 13.82 Mya.
3 occurrences of Metachroma 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
3 occurrencesThese 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
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Metachroma has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Metachroma and its relatives
MioceneWhere Metachroma and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
423 taxa- Chalcosicya2 sites
- Docodesmus2 sites
- Inodesmus2 sites
- Lophoproctus2 sites
- Siphonophora2 sites
- Siphonophora hoffmani2 sites
- Acallepitrix1 site
- Acanthognathus poinari1 site
- Acaricoris robertae1 site
- Aglyptinus poinari1 site
- Aivalykus dominicanus1 site
- Alethaxius1 site
- Allecula1 site
- Amberoderma beali1 site
- Anchonus acrolepidotus1 site
- Anlemmus leptorhinus1 site
- Anopheles (Nyssorhynchus) dominicanus1 site
- Anoplius planeta1 site
- Anthonomus (Anthomorphus) browni1 site
- Anthonomus (Anthomorphus) cruraluma1 site
- Anthonomus aphelomerus1 site
- Apharosoma euryrhina1 site
- Aphelopus poinari1 site
- Aphrastomyia planistylus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Metachroma, 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
2 references- Dominican and Mexican amber chrysomelids, with descriptions of two new species2
- A report on some recent collections of fossil Coleoptera from the Miocene shales of Florissant1
Each of the 3 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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Metachroma
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- (c) Justin Williams, some rights reserved (CC BY)
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Metachroma 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Metachroma”
- 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 itEumolpinae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Chevrolat 1836