Tetraphalerus

Tetraphalerus is a genus of beetles in the family Ommatidae, It is currently known from two extant species native to South America and several fossil species from the Jurassic and Cretaceous of Eurasia, as well as the Cretaceous of South America.

Tetraphalerus

David R. Maddison · CC BY 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
Sits inside
TetraphalerinaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 55 million years on record.

The record covers at least 174.7 Mya to 119.57 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 184.2 Mya to 113.2 Mya.

Early Jurassic — about 2 of 13 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 2 of 13 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 1 of 13 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 8 of 13 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous186–183 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences183–181 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences181–178 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences178–176 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences176–173 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences173–171 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences171–168 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences168–166 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences166–163 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences156–154 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences154–151 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences151–149 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences134–131 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences131–129 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences129–127 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences127–124 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences124–122 Mya — about 1 occurrence122–119 Mya — about 1 occurrence119–117 Mya — about 2 occurrences117–114 Mya — about 2 occurrences114–112 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences174.7 Mya119.57 Mya186 Mya112 Mya

13 occurrences of Tetraphalerus on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. 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

13 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

10 formations

Dzun-Bain — 45.45°N, 99.13°EBakhar — 45.22°N, 99.17°ELa Huérguina — 40.06°N, 1.88°WLa Pedrera de Rúbies — 42.02°N, 0.89°EAndaikhudag — 45.95°N, 99.60°EKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°EGurvan-Eren — 46.38°N, 93.95°ECattamarra Coal Measures — 30.26°S, 115.23°EGuanyintan — 26.49°N, 111.89°ECrato — 7.13°S, 39.70°W

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The named rock units Tetraphalerus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Tetraphalerus and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Tetraphalerus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

689 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Tetraphalerus, 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

7 references

Each of the 13 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. 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 Tetraphalerus

Credit
David R. Maddison
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Tetraphalerus 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 itTetraphalerinae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Waterhouse 1901