Oribatida

Oribatida, also known as oribatid mites, moss mites or beetle mites, are either a suborder or an order of mites, in the "chewing Acariformes" clade Sarcoptiformes. They range in size from 0.2 to 1.4 millimetres. There are currently 12,000 species that have been identified, but researchers estimate that there may be anywhere from 60,000 to 120,000 total species. Oribatid mites are by far the most prevalent of all arthropods in forest soils, and are essential for breaking down organic detritus and distributing fungi.

Oribatida

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
oribatid mitePBDB
Sits inside
SarcoptiformesPBDB
Life habit
solitaryPBDB, for Arachnida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arachnida
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Arachnida

Time the record covers

At least 387 million years on record.

The record covers at least 387.95 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 393.47 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Devonian — about 4 of 106 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 7 of 106 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 0 of 106 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 106 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 106 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 106 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 106 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 106 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 106 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 6 of 106 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 106 occurrencesPaleocene — about 1 of 106 occurrencesEocene — about 56 of 106 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 106 occurrencesMiocene — about 28 of 106 occurrencesPliocene — about 0 of 106 occurrencesPleistocene — about 4 of 106 occurrences401–388 Mya — about 3 occurrences388–375 Mya — about 1 occurrence348–334 Mya — about 2 occurrences334–321 Mya — about 4 occurrences321–308 Mya — about 1 occurrence134–120 Mya — about 1 occurrence120–107 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences107–94 Mya — about 5 occurrences67–54 Mya — about 1 occurrence40–27 Mya — about 56 occurrences27–13 Mya — about 21 occurrences13–0 Mya — about 11 occurrences387.95 Mya129 ka401 Mya0 Mya

106 occurrences of Oribatida 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

106 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

Escucha — 40.80°N, 0.81°WEscucha — 42.64°N, 2.72°WCarlentini — 37.21°N, 15.14°EMazantic Shale — 17.15°N, 92.72°WDunstan — 45.48°S, 169.31°EImuruk Volcanics — 65.88°N, 163.13°WOlympia beds — 47.66°N, 122.43°WOnteora — 42.38°N, 74.27°WYanghugou — 37.44°N, 105.05°EChickaloon — 61.74°N, 148.95°W"Wonthaggi" — 38.66°S, 145.68°E

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The named rock units Oribatida has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 81 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Oribatida and its relatives

Eocene

Where Oribatida and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

3,082 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 42 sites for Oribatida, 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

27 references

Each of the 106 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. 15 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 Oribatida

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

No 3D scan of Oribatida 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 itSarcoptiformes through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Dugès 1834