| Scarabaeoidea Temporal range:
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|---|---|
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| Scarabaeoidea from Central Europe with anatomical details | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Coleoptera |
| Suborder: | Polyphaga |
| Infraorder: | Scarabaeiformia Crowson, 1960 |
| Superfamily: | Scarabaeoidea Latreille, 1802 |
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.[1] Its constituent families are also undergoing revision presently, and the family list below is only preliminary. This superfamily includes some of the largest beetles extant today, including rhinoceros beetles, (Dynastinae), the Hercules beetle (Dynastes hercules) and Goliath beetles (Goliathus sp.).
The oldest confirmed member of the group is the extinct genus Alloioscarabaeus from the Middle Jurassic period Jiulongshan Formation of Inner Mongolia, China.[2]
- ^ Brett C. Ratcliffe (2002). "A checklist of the Scarabaeoidea (Coleoptera) of Panama" (PDF). Zootaxa (32): 1–48.
- ^ Bai, Ming; Ahrens, Dirk; Yang, Xing-Ke; Ren, Dong (April 2012). "New fossil evidence of the early diversification of scarabs: Alloioscarabaeus cheni (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea) from the Middle Jurassic of Inner Mongolia, China: New fossil evidence of scarabs from China". Insect Science. 19 (2): 159–171. doi:10.1111/j.1744-7917.2011.01460.x. S2CID 54930162.