A catalogue and bibliography of the world fossil Cantharidae are given. Rhagonycha germari (Heer, 1847) n. comb., Rhagonycha tertiaria (Heer, 1847) n. comb. and Rhagonycha hesperus (Wickham, 1914) n. comb. are transferred from Telephorus Schaeffer, 1766 = Cantharis Linnaeus, 1758 to Rhagonycha Eschscholtz, 1830. Atalantycha humata (Wickham, 1913) n. comb. is transferred from Telephorus Schaeffer, 1766 = Cantharis Linnaeus, 1758 to Atalantycha Kazantsev, 2005. Lycocerus guttula (J. Zhang, 1989) n. comb. is transferred from Cantharis Linnaeus, 1758 to Lycocerus Gorham, 1889. Curticantharis J. Zhang, 1989 = Themus Motschulsky, 1858 n. syn. Themus capacis (J. Zhang, 1989) n. comb., Themus thermophilus (J. Zhang, 1989) n. comb., Themus trapezialis (J. Zhang, Sun & X. Zhang, 1994) n. comb. and Themus sp. (J. Zhang, 1989) n. comb. are transferred from Curticantharis J. Zhang, 1989 to Themus Motschulsky, 1858. Telephorus tertiarius oeningensis Heer, 1847 n. syn. and Telephorus tertiarius radobojanus Heer, 1847 n. syn. are synonymized with Rhagonycha tertiaria (Heer, 1847). Lectotype and paralectotype of Rhagonycha tertiaria (Heer, 1847) are designated. Malthacus deceptus (W. J. Brown, 1940) n. comb. is the correct combination of Podabrus deceptus Brown = Dichelotarsus deceptus. A preliminary list of subfossil Cantharidae is also provided. Furthermore the Coleoptera Lampyridae Lamprohiza fossilis (Beier, 1952) n. comb. is transferred from Phausis LeConte, 1851 to Lamprohiza Motschulsky, 1853.