Pityophthorus

Pityophthorus is a genus of typical bark beetles in the family Curculionidae. As of mid-2026, there are 554 recognized species in Pityophthorus.

Pityophthorus

Uncredited · 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
PityophthorinaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 13 million years on record.

The record covers at least 13.82 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 20.45 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Miocene — about 3 of 19 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 19 occurrencesPleistocene — about 16 of 19 occurrencesPleistocene21–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences698 ka–0 Mya — about 16 occurrences13.82 Mya129 ka20.9 Mya0 Mya

19 occurrences of Pityophthorus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

19 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

2 formations

Titusville Till — 41.62°N, 79.64°WQuadra Sand — 49.29°N, 122.88°W

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The named rock units Pityophthorus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 15 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Pityophthorus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Pityophthorus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

658 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Pityophthorus, 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

6 references

Each of the 19 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Pityophthorus

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Pityophthorus 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 itPityophthorina through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Eichhoff 1864