Opiliones

The Opiliones are an order of arachnids, colloquially known as harvestmen, harvesters, daddy long legs, or granddaddy long legs. Over 6,650 species of harvestmen have been discovered worldwide, although the total number of extant species may exceed 10,000. The order Opiliones includes five suborders: Cyphophthalmi, Eupnoi, Dyspnoi, Laniatores, and Tetrophthalmi, which were named in 2014.

Opiliones

Bruce Marlin · CC BY-SA 2.5 · 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
harvestmanPBDB
Sits inside
StomothecataPBDB
Life habit
solitaryPBDB, for Arachnida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arachnida
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Arachnida

Time the record covers

At least 390 million years on record.

The record covers at least 410.62 Mya to 20 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 413.02 Mya to 13.82 Mya.

Silurian — about 0 of 123 occurrencesDevonian — about 2 of 123 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 15 of 123 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 0 of 123 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 123 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 123 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 123 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 123 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 1 of 123 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 2 of 123 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 3 of 123 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 35 of 123 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 123 occurrencesEocene — about 58 of 123 occurrencesOligocene — about 2 of 123 occurrencesMiocene — about 5 of 123 occurrences421–407 Mya — about 1 occurrence407–393 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences338–324 Mya — about 1 occurrence324–310 Mya — about 3 occurrences310–296 Mya — about 11 occurrences172–158 Mya — about 2 occurrences158–144 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences130–117 Mya — about 2 occurrences117–103 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences103–89 Mya — about 35 occurrences61–47 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences47–34 Mya — about 58 occurrences34–20 Mya — about 3 occurrences20–5.8 Mya — about 4 occurrences410.62 Mya20 Mya421 Mya6 Mya

123 occurrences of Opiliones 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

123 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

10 formations

Carbondale — 41.34°N, 88.39°WDaohugou — 41.32°N, 119.24°EFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WNiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°ECommentry Shales — 46.29°N, 2.75°EMessel — 49.93°N, 8.75°EEast Kirkton Limestone — 55.95°N, 3.20°WDryden Flags — 57.34°N, 2.85°WLa Huérguina — 40.06°N, 1.88°WGreat Seams — 46.68°N, 4.36°E

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The named rock units Opiliones has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 103 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Opiliones and its relatives

Eocene

Where Opiliones and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

3,930 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 53 sites for Opiliones, and this reads all of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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

51 references

Each of the 123 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. 39 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 Opiliones

Credit
Bruce Marlin
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Opiliones 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 itStomothecata through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

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