Nicrophorus vespilloides
Herbst, 1783 · speciesAt a glance
Sources10 archives
Databases and archives Nicrophorus vespilloides's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation6 languages↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility25 836 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI65 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics54 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
NCBIUS National Library of Medicinegenome & karyotype↗
Tree of SexTree of Sex Consortiumgenome & karyotype↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
Nicrophorus vespilloides is a burying beetle described by Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Herbst in 1783. The beetles are 10 – 18 mm long. They have two conspicuous orange-yellow bands on the elytra. The color of the antennae are an important distinguishing feature, being totally black. This is one of the most well studied of the burying beetles with over 1,000 citations found via Google Scholar. What had been considered Nicrophorus vespilloides in mid and eastern Canada and northeastern USA was determined by Sikes et al. in 2016 to be a separate, overlooked sister species of Nicrophorus vespilloides that had been named by Kirby in 1837. This sister species, Nicrophorus hebes Kirby, is restricted to Sphagnum bogs and marshes,. Nicrophorus vespilloides occurs throughout the northern Palearctic, Alaska and northwestern Canada where it is found in open forest habitats. The restriction of its sister species N. hebes to bogs in North America has been attributed to competition with its closely related congener, N. defodiens which in this area is found in forest habitats. N. hebes reproduces exclusively in bogs in North America and is never found in adjacent (<100 m) forested habitat in the Mer Bleue bog area near Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Beetles Nicrophorus vespilloides and Oiceoptoma thoracicum perusing an unidentified small carcass. There are also a number of phoretic (hitch-hiking) mites that are associated with N. vespilloides. These include Pelzneria nr. crenulata, Macrocheles merderius, and Uroobovella nr. novasimilis and the largest mite Poecilochirus carabi. P. carabi is not attached by any physical means (such as a secreted anal stalk in the case of M. merderius) to N. vespilloides. When the males or females of N. vespilloides have finished breeding on a carcass the deutonymphs of P. carabi roam freely about the body of the beetles as they search for new carcasses to reproduce. It had been proposed that P. carabi deutonymphs, on arrival at a new carcass dismounted from the beetles and consumed fly eggs and larvae which would have competed for the beetle larvae for food. This relationship which benefited the beetles has been described as mutualistic. However, it has been shown that adults of P. carabi consume the eggs of N. vespilloides and that this has direct and negative effects on the reproduction of this beetle species. N. vespilloides is also used as a model organism in the study of social immunity.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Diet & foraging2
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Nicrophorus vespilloides has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
The complete instruction manual Nicrophorus vespilloides carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
Chromosomes & ploidyhow the DNA is packaged
2n is the full chromosome count in a normal body cell; n is a gamete (egg or sperm), which carries half. Ploidy is how many complete chromosome sets each cell holds — 2× (diploid) is typical for animals, while higher levels (polyploidy) are common in plants. Click any value below to see the underlying records and sources.
2n 133×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database · GoaT · Tree of Sex Database · GoaT · Coleoptera Karyotype Database
2n 143×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database · GoaT · Tree of Sex Database · TreeOfSex · invert
diploid1×GoaT · Coleoptera Karyotype Database
Sequencing statusassembly quality — how far to trust these numbers
Assembly level tells you how finished the sequence is — from fragmented contigs, through scaffolds, up to a full chromosome-level assembly. BUSCO % estimates completeness: the share of genes expected to be present that were actually found. These describe the data quality, not the organism.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil.
Record type25 836 records
Origin
Range
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Cultivated / Captivenot free-living
A living individual in a botanical garden, zoo or nursery — cultivated or kept, not free-living.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions24 of 64 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| Edmonton, CA | 617 |
| Vitoria, ES | 282 |
| SLU Artdatabankenlocation not on record | 199 |
| Trondheim, NO | 187 |
| NMBU:MINAlocation not on record | 168 |
| Jyväskylä, FI | 151 |
| Bonn, DE | 147 |
| Metsähallituslocation not on record | 139 |
| NHMOlocation not on record | 110 |
| Muzeum Górnośląskie w Bytomiulocation not on record | 106 |
| Tartu, EE | 72 |
| Natural History Museum Rotterdamlocation not on record | 63 |
| Olocation not on record | 58 |
| Helsinki, FI | 50 |
| Tilburg, NL | 41 |
| Tromsø, NO | 38 |
| Salzburg, AT | 36 |
| OSUClocation not on record | 34 |
| Chicago, US | 29 |
| Kuopio, FI | 28 |
| Nijmegen, NL | 24 |
| ZMAAlocation not on record | 21 |
| BioFokuslocation not on record | 21 |
| NTNU-VMlocation not on record | 21 |
| Espace pour la vielocation not on record | 20 |
| DOI/FWS, Kenai National Wildlife Refugelocation not on record | 16 |
| Philadelphia, US | 15 |
| Museo civico La Terra e l'Uomo di Crocetta del Montellolocation not on record | 14 |
| University of Alberta Museums (UAM)location not on record | 14 |
| IPEM TASlocation not on record | 14 |
| NMOKlocation not on record | 12 |
| Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU)location not on record | 12 |
| South Kensington, GB | 10 |
| LSMlocation not on record | 10 |
| IFR-DNFlocation not on record | 9 |
| TMPMlocation not on record | 8 |
| Museum of Zoology at the University of Bergen, Invertebrate Collectionlocation not on record | 8 |
| WIlocation not on record | 8 |
| CBDClocation not on record | 7 |
| Champaign, US | 7 |
| Tallinn, EE | 7 |
| Copenhagen, DK | 7 |
| New Haven, US | 7 |
| MZLUlocation not on record | 6 |
| neflocation not on record | 6 |
| Uniwersytet Wrocławskilocation not on record | 5 |
| UDlocation not on record | 5 |
| Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznańlocation not on record | 5 |
| Ugentlocation not on record | 5 |
| Denver, US | 4 |
| Saint John, CA | 4 |
| Essig Museum of Entomologylocation not on record | 4 |
| Royal Saskatchewan Museumlocation not on record | 4 |
| Fergusson College (Autonomous)location not on record | 3 |
| University Park, US | 3 |
| Stockholm, SE | 1 |
| JRUClocation not on record | 1 |
| Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria - AGROSAVIAlocation not on record | 1 |
| University of Tokyo, Department of Zoologylocation not on record | 1 |
| ZSMlocation not on record | 1 |
| University of Alaska Museumlocation not on record | 1 |
| Natural History Museum, Londonlocation not on record | 1 |
| Teylers Museumlocation not on record | 1 |
| Paris, FR | 1 |
Cultivated / Captivenot free-living
A living individual in a botanical garden, zoo or nursery — cultivated or kept, not free-living.
Where the DNA of Nicrophorus vespilloides was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.