Psyllidae

Psyllidae, the jumping plant lice or psyllids, are a family of small plant-feeding insects that tend to be very host-specific, each plant-louse species feeding on just one plant species (monophagous) or a few closely related plants (oligophagous). They are found mainly on perennial plant hosts. Together with aphids, phylloxerans, scale insects and whiteflies, they form the group called Sternorrhyncha, which is considered to be the most "primitive" group within the true bugs (Hemiptera). They have traditionally been considered a single family, Psyllidae, but recent classifications divide make them one of seven families within the superfamily Psylloidea. If we consider the broader definition there are an estimated 4000 species placed in around 70 genera. Some species are considered as pests in citrus and other horticultural crops. The narrowly defined family Psyllidae does not have unambiguous support of monophyly.

Psyllidae

Mick Talbot from Lincoln (U.K.), England · CC BY 2.0 · 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
jumping plant lousePBDB
Sits inside
PsylloideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 137 million years on record.

The record covers at least 137.05 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 139.1 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 3 of 61 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 61 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 61 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 61 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 61 occurrencesMiocene — about 54 of 61 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 61 occurrencesPleistocene — about 2 of 61 occurrences142–137 Mya — about 2 occurrences137–132 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences123–118 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences118–114 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences114–109 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences38–33 Mya — about 1 occurrence24–19 Mya — about 5 occurrences19–14 Mya — about 25 occurrences14–9.5 Mya — about 23 occurrences4.7–0 Mya — about 3 occurrences137.05 Mya11.7 ka142 Mya0 Mya

61 occurrences of Psyllidae on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

61 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

7 formations

Argun — 45.44°N, 36.59°EKaragan — 45.05°N, 42.32°EShahejie — 37.87°N, 118.79°EOlympia beds — 47.66°N, 122.43°WMazantic Shale — 17.15°N, 92.70°WGarang — 35.35°N, 101.64°EMiyajima — 36.98°N, 139.81°E

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The named rock units Psyllidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 51 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Psyllidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Psyllidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

697 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 23 sites for Psyllidae, 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

14 references

Each of the 61 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. 2 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 Psyllidae

Credit
Mick Talbot from Lincoln (U.K.), England
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Psyllidae 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 itPsylloidea through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Latreille 1807