Scarabaeoidea

Scarabaeoidea is a superfamily of beetles, the only subgroup of the infraorder Scarabaeiformia. Around 35,000 species are placed in this superfamily and some 200 new species are described each year. Some of its constituent families are undergoing revision, and the family list below is provisional. This superfamily includes some of the largest beetles extant today, including rhinoceros beetles (Dynastinae), especially the Hercules beetle and the Goliath beetles.

Scarabaeoidea

Edmund Reitter · 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
scarab beetlePBDB
Sits inside
StaphyliniformiaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 199 million years on record.

The record covers at least 199.5 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 201.4 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Triassic — about 0 of 710 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 2 of 710 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 2 of 710 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 8 of 710 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 150 of 710 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 33 of 710 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 3 of 710 occurrencesEocene — about 115 of 710 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 28 of 710 occurrencesMiocene — about 111 of 710 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 17 of 710 occurrencesPleistocene — about 239 of 710 occurrences205–199 Mya — about 1 occurrence185–178 Mya — about 1 occurrence171–164 Mya — about 1 occurrence164–157 Mya — about 2 occurrences157–151 Mya — about 4 occurrences151–144 Mya — about 3 occurrences144–137 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences137–130 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences130–123 Mya — about 31 occurrences123–116 Mya — about 85 occurrences116–110 Mya — about 33 occurrences110–103 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences103–96 Mya — about 21 occurrences96–89 Mya — about 12 occurrences89–82 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences82–75 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences75–68 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences68–62 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences62–55 Mya — about 3 occurrences55–48 Mya — about 7 occurrences48–41 Mya — about 32 occurrences41–34 Mya — about 69 occurrences34–27 Mya — about 10 occurrences27–21 Mya — about 28 occurrences21–14 Mya — about 68 occurrences14–6.8 Mya — about 38 occurrences6.8–0 Mya — about 260 occurrences199.5 Mya11.7 ka205 Mya0 Mya

710 occurrences of Scarabaeoidea 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

710 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

71 formations

Highbury Silts and Sands — 51.56°N, 0.06°WFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WFlorissant — 38.93°N, 105.24°WYixian — 41.54°N, 118.92°EYixian — 41.62°N, 120.83°EYixian — 41.42°N, 118.97°EYixian — 41.26°N, 119.05°EYixian — 41.16°N, 119.29°EYixian — 41.19°N, 119.21°EZaza — 53.30°N, 112.09°EShanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°EUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°EEifel — 50.11°N, 6.82°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°ERott — 50.60°N, 7.25°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°ERott — 50.59°N, 7.24°EMizozono — 31.98°N, 130.74°EArgun — 51.71°N, 113.39°EKap København — 82.47°N, 23.66°WKap København — 82.45°N, 24.10°WKap København — 82.32°N, 23.85°WKap København — 82.39°N, 24.18°WOlympia beds — 47.66°N, 122.43°WTitusville Till — 41.62°N, 79.64°WDzun-Bain — 45.45°N, 99.13°EKeremesit — 69.50°N, 158.50°EKeremesit — 69.17°N, 158.12°EMessel — 49.93°N, 8.75°ETsumori — 32.79°N, 130.86°ELaiyang — 37.02°N, 120.85°ELaiyang — 36.78°N, 120.67°ELaiyang — 37.05°N, 120.96°EBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WShar-Tolgoy — 46.10°N, 100.68°EKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°EGreen River — 39.98°N, 109.11°WGreen River — 41.55°N, 109.51°WGreen River — 39.63°N, 108.15°WGreen River — 39.64°N, 108.76°WDaohugou — 41.32°N, 119.24°ELeskovskaya — 51.70°N, 116.93°E

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The named rock units Scarabaeoidea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 47 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 213 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Scarabaeoidea and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Scarabaeoidea and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

6,503 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 305 sites for Scarabaeoidea, and this reads 240 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

232 references

Each of the 710 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. 220 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 Scarabaeoidea

Credit
Edmund Reitter
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Scarabaeoidea 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 itStaphyliniformia through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Latreille 1802