Sciaridae

The Sciaridae are a family of flies, commonly known as dark-winged fungus gnats. Commonly found in moist environments, they are known to be a pest of mushroom farms and are commonly found in household plant pots. This is one of the least studied of the large Diptera families, probably due to the small size of these insects and the similarity among species.

Sciaridae

gailhampshire from Cradley, Malvern, U.K · 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
dark-winged fungus gnatPBDB
Sits inside
SciaroideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 125 million years on record.

The record covers at least 125.77 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 132.6 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 2 of 267 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 1 of 267 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 267 occurrencesEocene — about 136 of 267 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 50 of 267 occurrencesMiocene — about 67 of 267 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 5 of 267 occurrencesPleistocene — about 4 of 267 occurrences135–131 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences131–126 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences126–122 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences117–113 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences113–108 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences108–104 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences104–99 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences99–95 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences95–90 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences59–54 Mya — about 1 occurrence54–50 Mya — about 3 occurrences50–45 Mya — about 2 occurrences45–41 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences41–36 Mya — about 55 occurrences36–32 Mya — about 76 occurrences32–27 Mya — about 6 occurrences27–23 Mya — about 43 occurrences23–18 Mya — about 18 occurrences18–14 Mya — about 43 occurrences14–9.0 Mya — about 4 occurrences9.0–4.5 Mya — about 1 occurrence4.5–0 Mya — about 11 occurrences125.77 Mya11.7 ka135 Mya0 Mya

267 occurrences of Sciaridae on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

267 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

22 formations

Rott — 50.75°N, 7.26°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°ERandeck Maar — 48.57°N, 9.53°ENiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°EFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WMiyajima — 36.98°N, 139.81°ENagano — 31.88°N, 130.34°ECampagne-Calavon — 43.85°N, 5.58°EShanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°EYanigua — 18.98°N, 69.45°WArgiles d'lignite du Soissonnais — 49.33°N, 2.66°ELatah — 46.53°N, 116.79°WMazantic Shale — 17.15°N, 92.70°WWeald Clay — 52.72°N, 1.44°WAustralian Creek — 52.97°N, 122.50°WGreen River — 41.55°N, 109.51°WBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WCypris — 50.08°N, 12.54°EMae Sot — 19.29°N, 99.63°EMasaragawa — 38.25°N, 138.41°EUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°ESanta Clara — 37.82°S, 57.48°WKishenehn — 48.39°N, 113.70°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Sciaridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 178 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Sciaridae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Sciaridae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

3,851 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 63 sites for Sciaridae, 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

48 references

Each of the 267 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. 36 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 Sciaridae

Credit
gailhampshire from Cradley, Malvern, U.K
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Sciaridae 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 itSciaroidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Billberg 1820