Ptychopteridae

The Ptychopteridae, phantom crane flies, are a small family of nematocerous Diptera. Superficially similar in appearance to other "tipuloid" families, they lack the ocelli of the Trichoceridae, the five-branched radial vein of the Tanyderidae, and the two anal veins that reach the wing margins of the Tipulidae. They are usually allied with the Tanyderidae based on similarities of the mesonotal suture, this group being called the Ptychopteromorpha.

Ptychopteridae

Backslash · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
phantom crane flyPBDB
Sits inside
PtychopteromorphaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 196 million years on record.

The record covers at least 205.7 Mya to 8.725 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 211.18 Mya to 5.09 Mya.

Late Triassic — about 2 of 138 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 26 of 138 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 18 of 138 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 47 of 138 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 31 of 138 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 3 of 138 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 138 occurrencesEocene — about 9 of 138 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 138 occurrencesMiocene — about 2 of 138 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 138 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 138 occurrences215–208 Mya — about 1 occurrence208–201 Mya — about 1 occurrence201–194 Mya — about 4 occurrences194–187 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences187–180 Mya — about 17 occurrences180–172 Mya — about 4 occurrences172–165 Mya — about 12 occurrences165–158 Mya — about 10 occurrences158–151 Mya — about 22 occurrences151–144 Mya — about 19 occurrences144–137 Mya — about 13 occurrences137–130 Mya — about 3 occurrences130–122 Mya — about 5 occurrences122–115 Mya — about 8 occurrences115–108 Mya — about 4 occurrences101–94 Mya — about 2 occurrences87–80 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences80–72 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences72–65 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences58–51 Mya — about 4 occurrences51–44 Mya — about 2 occurrences44–37 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences37–30 Mya — about 2 occurrences22–15 Mya — about 1 occurrence15–8.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences8.1–968 ka Mya — about 0.8 occurrences205.7 Mya8.725 Mya215 Mya968 ka

138 occurrences of Ptychopteridae on record, most of them in the Late Jurassic. 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

138 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

32 formations

Karabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°EItat — 56.17°N, 93.17°EDaohugou — 41.32°N, 119.24°EZaza — 53.30°N, 112.09°EPosidonia Shale — 52.36°N, 10.71°EPosidonia Shale — 52.36°N, 10.59°EPosidonia Shale — 52.31°N, 10.62°ESharteg — 44.14°N, 95.77°EKhaya — 62.16°N, 118.60°EDzhil — 42.70°N, 77.20°EGlushkovo — 51.71°N, 116.93°EGlushkovo — 51.92°N, 117.62°EMakarova — 55.97°N, 92.71°ELulworth — 50.60°N, 1.95°WLulworth — 50.65°N, 2.36°WFur — 56.92°N, 8.92°EFur — 56.89°N, 8.72°EFur — 56.89°N, 8.82°EWeald Clay — 51.13°N, 0.33°WSagul — 39.98°N, 70.43°EDurlston — 50.60°N, 1.95°WBatylykh — 66.79°N, 123.38°EYangshuzhuang — 35.06°N, 112.48°ECypris — 50.08°N, 12.54°EAllenby — 49.44°N, 120.54°WBakhar — 45.22°N, 99.17°EUlaan-Ereg — 45.59°N, 107.80°EFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WByankino — 50.76°N, 115.66°EJiulongshan — 41.32°N, 119.24°E

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The named rock units Ptychopteridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 28 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Ptychopteridae and its relatives

Late Jurassic

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

Found in the same rock

3,799 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 71 sites for Ptychopteridae, 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

45 references

Each of the 138 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. 33 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 Ptychopteridae

Credit
Backslash
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ptychopteridae 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 itPtychopteromorpha through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Osten-Sacken 1862