Mymaridae

The Mymaridae, commonly known as fairyflies or fairy wasps, are a family of chalcidoid wasps found in temperate, subtropical, and tropical regions throughout the world. The family contains around 100 genera with 1,400 species.

Mymaridae

S.E. Thorpe · 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
fairyflyPBDB
Sits inside
ChalcidoideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 93 million years on record.

The record covers at least 93.9 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 59 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 9 of 59 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 59 occurrencesEocene — about 32 of 59 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 59 occurrencesMiocene — about 16 of 59 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 59 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 59 occurrences103–99 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences99–96 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences96–92 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences85–82 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences82–79 Mya — about 2 occurrences79–75 Mya — about 2 occurrences75–72 Mya — about 2 occurrences72–68 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences68–65 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences51–48 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences48–44 Mya — about 4 occurrences44–41 Mya — about 4 occurrences41–38 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences38–34 Mya — about 22 occurrences34–31 Mya — about 2 occurrences24–21 Mya — about 5 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 8 occurrences17–14 Mya — about 3 occurrences14–10 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences10–6.8 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences6.8–3.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences3.4–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences93.9 Mya11.7 ka103 Mya0 Mya

59 occurrences of Mymaridae on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

59 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

4 formations

Kishenehn — 48.39°N, 113.70°WForemost — 49.83°N, 111.70°WDunstan — 45.48°S, 169.31°EBattle — 49.24°N, 105.21°W

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The named rock units Mymaridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 46 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Mymaridae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Mymaridae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

2,104 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 32 sites for Mymaridae, 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

19 references

Each of the 59 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. 7 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 Mymaridae

Credit
S.E. Thorpe
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Mymaridae 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 itChalcidoidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Haliday 1833