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The recently identified parasitic wasp, which was buzzing and flew among the dinosaurs 99 million years ago, developed a bizarre mechanism for ridicule other creatures and forcing them to involuntarily house their young, according to the New Research.
Paleontologists have examined 16 specimens of the tiny wasp preserved in amber dating from the Cretaceous period, which was previously discovered in Myanmar. The unknown species, which is now called sirenobethylus charybdis, had a structure similar to the Flytrap of Venus, the abdomen that could allow it to capture other insects, the researchers said on Thursday at BMC Biology.
“When I looked at the first specimen, I noticed this extension on the tip of the abdomen and decided that it should be an air bubble. You often see air bubbles around the copies in amber,” said the study co -author of the Lars Wilhelmsen, an UU and a curator at the Natural Museum of the History of the Museum of Dar’s History.
“But then I looked at a few more copies and then returned to the first. It was actually part of the animal.”
Vilhelmsen and his colleagues at Capital Normal University in Beijing determine that the structure is movable because it is reserved in different positions of different specimens.
“Sometimes the lower lid, as we call it, is open and sometimes closed,” Wilhelsen said. “It was obviously a movable structure and something that was used to grasp something.”
The closest comparison found in nature today is the Flyrap of Venus, a carnivorous plant with hinged leaves that close when the prey flies inside, according to the new study.
“There is no way to understand how the insect that died 100 million years ago. So you’re looking for analogues in the modern insect fauna. Do we have anything among wasps or other groups that look like this?” he said.
“And there is no real analogue in the insects. We had to go out of the animal kingdom in the plant kingdom to find something that looks remotely like it.”
A closer view of sirenobethylus charybdis shows the structure similar to the Flyrap of Venus on the wasp abdomen. – QIONG WU
However, researchers are saying that WASP probably does not intend to kill with the bizarre conception structure.
Instead, they theorizes that Osa injected eggs into the caught body before freeing it, using the creature as an involuntary host for their eggs. Then his larvae began their lives as parasites in or on the host’s body and probably ultimately eat the host, Wilhelsen said. The host was probably a flying insect of a similar wasp size, he added.
Similarly, although no identical behavior has been observed among living parasitoid species WASP. For example, a group of wasps known as cuckoo wasps laid their eggs in the nest of another wasp, and the larvae celebrate their new hosts young after they hatch.
Amber fossils offer a torturous, three -dimensional look at the distant past. In addition to plants and flowers, a dinosaur tail, cancer, hell ant, mom spider and its young, and firefly were found in globes of wood resin.
The fossil enthusiast purchased the amber containing sirenobethylus charybdis, which comes from the Mianmar Kachin region near the border with China, a few years ago and donated it to the University’s main laboratory for the evolution of insects and changes in the environment in 2016.
Amber fossils have been some of the most exciting finds of paleontology in recent years, but ethical concerns about the origin of amber from the region have emerged, with some paleontologists calling for a moratorium on Amber study derived from Myanmar after the military coup in 2021.
The reconstruction of sirenobethylus charybdis illustrates the bizarre stiffening structure of WASP. – Xiaoran Zuo
“Cretaceous -Satrife”
The Creid Stranger Sirenobethylus Charybdis adds to a growing list of insects of that time that “had adaptations that are beyond living today,” says Phil Barden, Assistant Professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology Institute, who worked with Amber fossils.
“This is important because there are about a million known types of insects – even with all this live variety, there are still many unexpected surprises in the fossil record that are out of the imagination,” says Bardry, who did not participate in the study, said by email.
However, he said, although plausible, the Flytrap’s hypothesis is “a little speculative.”
“There seems to be clear evidence that the abdominal components would have a range of movement. There are also a number of walks or hairs that look in the right position to detect hosts and potentially immobilize them,” Bardnda said.
He said that biological structures may have had another purpose such as the detection of prey in the soil or perhaps even for transporting baby wasps.
“Today, thousands of parasitoid axes are capable of immobilizing hosts without abdominal to squeeze. Why were these axes not able to simply rely on their stings or to include their intelligent parts in capturing the hosts, as the living species do?” Bardry asked.
Wilhelsen said a key factor in the interpretation of his fossil colleagues is the location of the OSA egg laying organ to the right structure similar to the trap. However, all studied so far discussed by Siren -Betillus Haribdis are female wasps, so researchers were not able to exclude that the structure could play a role during mating, according to the study.
“This is something unique, something I never expected to see and something I couldn’t even imagine will be found,” said Wilhelmsen. “This is 10 out of 10.”
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