99-Million Year Old Thieves Caught in Amber
Recently, a research team led by Dr. CAI Chenyang and Prof. HUANG Diying from Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology (NIGPAS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported the oldest, horseshoe-crab-shaped, and obligate termite-loving rove beetles from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber.
The oldest termitophile from 99-million-year-old Burmese amber, Cretotrichopsenius burmiticus.
Credit: Image by Cai et al., 2017
Termitophiles, symbionts that live in termite nests, include a wide range of morphologically and behaviorally specialized organisms. Understanding of the early evolution of termitophily is challenging due to a scarcity of fossil termitophiles, with all known reliable records occurring from the Miocene Dominican and Mexican ambers (approximately 19 million years ago). Mesozoic termitophiles are of great significance for understanding the origin of eusocial societies of termites and the early evolution of specialized termitophily.
The peculiar fossil rove beetles, named as Cretotrichopsenius burmiticus Cai et al., 2017, exhibits the characteristic features of the modern aleocharine tribe Trichopseniini, including the articulation of the hind leg whereby the coxae are fully fused and incorporated into the metaventrite.
Ecological reconstruction of the mid-Cretaceous termitophille.
Credit: Image by Cai et al., 2017
Because host specificity is rather low in extant trichopseniines, it is certainly likely that Cretotrichopsenius may have been associated with the variety of termite groups known from Burmese amber. The fossils reveal that ancient termite societies were quickly invaded by beetles about 99 million years ago.
The result was published in Current Biology on April 13th, 2017. This study was jointly supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foundation, the Natural Sciences Foundation of Jiangsu Province, and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China.
Cai Chenyang
Source: http://www.ineffableisland.com/2017/04/99-million-year-old-thieves-caught-in.html
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