Naucoridae

Naucoridae is a small family of insects commonly known as the creeping water bugs and saucer bugs. They are similar in appearance and behavior to Belostomatidae, but considerably smaller, at 0.5–2 cm (0.2–0.8 in) long. Naucoridae are found around the world, but the greatest diversity is in tropical regions. They inhabit a wide range of freshwater habitats, ranging from still waters like ponds, to flowing rivers and even torrential streams. There are eight subfamilies containing about 400 species in 46 genera. One of these subfamilies is Pelocoris, and the species within this group are usually found in ponds or quiet bodies of water. They are predators that feed on other small invertebrates.

Naucoridae

Siga · CC BY-SA 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
Also called
creeping water bugPBDB
Sits inside
NaucoroideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 196 million years on record.

The record covers at least 205.7 Mya to 8.725 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 227.3 Mya to 5.09 Mya.

Late Triassic — about 1 of 45 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 7 of 45 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 2 of 45 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 11 of 45 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 18 of 45 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 45 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 45 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 45 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 3 of 45 occurrencesMiocene — about 2 of 45 occurrencesPliocene — about 0 of 45 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 45 occurrences232–224 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences224–216 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences216–209 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences209–201 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences193–186 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences186–178 Mya — about 5 occurrences178–170 Mya — about 1 occurrence170–162 Mya — about 2 occurrences162–155 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences155–147 Mya — about 7 occurrences147–139 Mya — about 4 occurrences132–124 Mya — about 2 occurrences124–116 Mya — about 11 occurrences116–108 Mya — about 5 occurrences39–31 Mya — about 1 occurrence31–24 Mya — about 2 occurrences24–16 Mya — about 2 occurrences16–8.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.3–646 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences205.7 Mya8.725 Mya232 Mya646 ka

45 occurrences of Naucoridae on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. 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

45 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

16 formations

Gurvan-Eren — 48.07°N, 91.65°EGurvan-Eren — 46.38°N, 93.95°EKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°ESharteg — 44.14°N, 95.78°ECheremkhovskaya — 54.17°N, 100.31°ESolnhofen — 48.91°N, 11.14°EYixian — 41.62°N, 120.83°ECrato — 7.13°S, 39.70°WAerado — 18.38°S, 46.03°WLa Huérguina — 40.06°N, 1.88°WCow Branch — 36.54°N, 79.67°WFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WItat — 56.17°N, 93.17°EZhargalant — 48.50°N, 92.80°EZaza — 53.30°N, 112.09°ELeskovskaya — 51.70°N, 116.93°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°E

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The named rock units Naucoridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Naucoridae and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Naucoridae and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

2,208 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 38 sites for Naucoridae, 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

20 references

Each of the 45 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. 8 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 Naucoridae

Credit
Siga
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Naucoridae 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 itNaucoroidea through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Fallen 1814