Palaeontinidae

Palaeontinidae, commonly known as giant cicadas, is an extinct family of cicadomorphs. They existed from the Late Triassic to the Early Cretaceous. The family contains around 30 to 40 genera and around a hundred species. They are thought to have had a similar ecology to modern cicadas as feeders on plant xylem fluids. Despite being described as "giant cicadas", they are not particularly closely related to true cicadas.

Palaeontinidae

Chunpeng Xu, Jun Chen, Florian T. Muijres, Yilun Yu, Edmund A. Jarzembowski, Haichun Zhang, and Bo Wang · CC BY 4.0 · 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
Sits inside
PalaeontinoideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 132 million years on record.

The record covers at least 251.902 Mya to 119.57 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 298.9 Mya to 113.2 Mya.

Carboniferous — about 0 of 166 occurrencesPermian — about 1 of 166 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 166 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 3 of 166 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 4 of 166 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 27 of 166 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 23 of 166 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 66 of 166 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 42 of 166 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous303–296 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences296–290 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences290–283 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences283–277 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences277–270 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences270–264 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences264–258 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences258–251 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences245–238 Mya — about 2 occurrences238–232 Mya — about 2 occurrences232–225 Mya — about 1 occurrence225–219 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences219–212 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences212–206 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences206–200 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences200–193 Mya — about 3 occurrences193–187 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences187–180 Mya — about 10 occurrences180–174 Mya — about 14 occurrences174–167 Mya — about 1 occurrence167–161 Mya — about 24 occurrences161–155 Mya — about 33 occurrences155–148 Mya — about 9 occurrences148–142 Mya — about 22 occurrences142–135 Mya — about 1 occurrence135–129 Mya — about 1 occurrence129–122 Mya — about 23 occurrences122–116 Mya — about 12 occurrences116–109 Mya — about 4 occurrences251.902 Mya119.57 Mya303 Mya109 Mya

166 occurrences of Palaeontinidae on record, most of them in the Late Jurassic. 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

166 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

27 formations

Daohugou — 41.32°N, 119.24°EDaohugou — 41.37°N, 119.38°ESolnhofen — 48.91°N, 11.14°EYixian — 41.42°N, 118.97°EYixian — 41.33°N, 119.13°EYixian — 41.62°N, 120.83°EYixian — 41.51°N, 118.85°EYixian — 41.38°N, 116.28°EYixian — 40.91°N, 117.92°EYixian — 41.15°N, 117.96°EYixian — 41.03°N, 118.92°EYixian — 40.97°N, 117.90°ECrato — 7.13°S, 39.70°WSagul — 39.98°N, 70.43°ESulyukta — 40.03°N, 70.50°ESulyukta — 39.94°N, 69.59°ECheremkhovskaya — 54.17°N, 100.31°ELa Pedrera de Rúbies — 42.02°N, 0.89°EHaifanggou — 40.97°N, 120.35°EHaifanggou — 41.75°N, 120.75°EHaifanggou — 41.47°N, 120.75°EJiulongshan — 40.91°N, 118.32°EJiulongshan — 40.96°N, 117.61°EWeald Clay — 50.83°N, 0.43°EWeald Clay — 51.13°N, 0.42°WWeald Clay — 51.13°N, 0.33°WMadygen — 40.05°N, 70.21°EBadaowan — 45.60°N, 84.90°EKarabastau — 42.95°N, 69.92°EKushmurun — 52.45°N, 64.61°EMolteno — 31.47°S, 26.83°EDzhil — 42.70°N, 77.20°ELulworth — 50.60°N, 1.95°WTaunton Limestone — 51.86°N, 1.43°WUkurei — 52.31°N, 117.04°EGlushkovo — 51.92°N, 117.62°EDashankou — 41.67°N, 97.70°EHuangshanjie — 43.13°N, 88.18°EAmisan — 36.34°N, 126.63°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Palaeontinidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Palaeontinidae and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Palaeontinidae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

1,823 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 84 sites for Palaeontinidae, 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

67 references

Each of the 166 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. 55 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 Palaeontinidae

Credit
Chunpeng Xu, Jun Chen, Florian T. Muijres, Yilun Yu, Edmund A. Jarzembowski, Haichun Zhang, and Bo Wang
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Palaeontinidae 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 itPalaeontinoidea through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Handlirsch 1906