Mythicomyiidae

Mythicomyiidae, commonly called mythicomyiids, are very tiny flies (0.5–5.0 mm) found throughout most parts of the world, especially desert and semi-desert regions, except the highest altitudes and latitudes. They are not as common in the tropics, but genera such as Cephalodromia and Platypygus are known from these regions. Many of these "microbombyliids" have a humpbacked thorax and lack the dense vestiture common in the Bombyliidae. Mythicomyiids have until recently not had much attention in the literature. Their small size has caused them to be missed when collecting. Yellow pan trapping and fine-mesh netting in Malaise and aerial sweep nets has resulted in a number of undescribed species from many parts of the world. A high diversity of both genera and species exists for this family in Africa, especially northern and southern portions. More than 450 species are known. Hundreds more await description.

Mythicomyiidae

The original uploader was Nealevenhuis at English Wikipedia . · Copyrighted free use-link · 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
AsiloideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 144 million years on record.

The record covers at least 165.3 Mya to 20.45 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 170.9 Mya to 13.82 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 1 of 35 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 35 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 35 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 4 of 35 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 35 occurrencesEocene — about 24 of 35 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 35 occurrencesMiocene — about 6 of 35 occurrences174–169 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences169–163 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences103–98 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences98–92 Mya — about 1 occurrence87–81 Mya — about 2 occurrences60–54 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences54–49 Mya — about 4 occurrences49–43 Mya — about 1 occurrence38–32 Mya — about 18 occurrences22–16 Mya — about 4 occurrences16–11 Mya — about 2 occurrences165.3 Mya20.45 Mya174 Mya11 Mya

35 occurrences of Mythicomyiidae 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

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

4 formations

Argiles d'lignite du Soissonnais — 49.33°N, 2.66°EGreen River — 38.90°N, 109.20°WGreen River — 39.51°N, 108.03°WKheta — 71.31°N, 99.56°EItat — 56.17°N, 93.17°E

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The named rock units Mythicomyiidae 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.

Mythicomyiidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Mythicomyiidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

2,069 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 21 sites for Mythicomyiidae, 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

16 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. 4 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 Mythicomyiidae

Credit
The original uploader was Nealevenhuis at English Wikipedia .
Licence
Copyrighted free use-link
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Mythicomyiidae 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 itAsiloidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Melander 1902)