Revisiting the ecology and evolution of burying beetles (Staphylinidae: Silphinae)

Investigating fundamental processes in biology requires the ability to ground broad questions in species-specific natural history. This is particularly true in the study of behavior because an organism’s experience of the environment will influence the behaviors expressed and the opportunity for selection. Here, we provide a review of the natural history and behavior of burying beetles of the genus Nicrophorus to provide the groundwork for comparative work that showcases their remarkable behavioral and ecological diversity. Burying beetles have long fascinated scientists because of their well-developed parenting behavior, exhibiting extended post-hatching care of offspring that varies extensively within and across taxa. Despite the burgeoning success of burying beetles as a model system for the study of behavioral evolution, there has not been a review of their behavior, ecology, and evolution in over 25 years. To address this gap, we leverage a developing community of researchers who h..., Data were collected from a perusal of iNaturalist imagery for Nicrophorus, or from published manuscripts reporting different body sizes., , # Data from: Revisiting the ecology and evolution of burying beetles (Staphylinidae: Silphinae)

[https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.70175](https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.70175)

Data are references to iNaturalist observations that showcase diversity of feeding and breeding substrates and instances of predation of *Nicrophorus* worldwide, iNaturalist data for the images used in figures 2-4 in the manuscript, and the data/references for data used for body size distributions provided in figure 5. 

## Description of the data and file structure

There are two data files that include all data. File specific information is included below under the name of each file.

**iNaturalist sightings**:

Data for observations of *Nicrophorus* from iNaturalist. Data included include the species name, what is occurring in the image, the research grade designation of the observation, and a link to the observation data. If an image was included in a figure, the figure it was used in is written under \"Figures\", wi...