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A newly identified parasitic wasp, which buzzed and flew and flew among the dinosaurs under the dinosaurs 99 million years ago, has developed a bizarre mechanism to prevent other creatures and to force them according to new research to unintentionally protect its boys.
Paleontologists examined 16 specimens of the tiny wasp, which went back to the chalk in Bernstein, which was previously discovered in Myanmar. The previously unknown species, which were now called Sirenobethylus Charybdis, had a Venus-Flytrap-like structure on his stomach, which enabled him to catch other insects, the researchers reported on Thursday in the Journal BMC Biology.
“When I looked at the first copy, I noticed this expansion at the top of the abdomen and I thought it had to be an air bubble. It is often often that air bubbles around Exemplies in amber in amber,” said Co -Co -Autor Lars Vilhelmsen, a wasp expert and curator of the Natural History Museum in Copenhagen.
“But then I looked at a few copies and then returned to the first. This was actually part of the animal.”
Vilhelmsen and his colleagues from Capital Normal University in Beijing found that the structure was mobile because they were preserved in different samples in different positions.
“Sometimes the lower flap, as we call it, is open and sometimes it is closed,” said Vilhelmsen. “It was clearly a movable structure and something with which something was recorded.”
Today’s comparison in nature is the Venus Flytrap, a carnivorous plant with polluted leaves, which, according to the new study, flies inwards when prey flies inside.
“There is no way that you can know how an insect that died 100 million years ago.
“And there is no real analogue within insects. We had to go all the way out of the animal kingdom to the plant kingdom to find something that resembled it from afar.”
A more precise view of the Sirenobethylus Charybdis shows the Venus-Flytrap-like structure on the belly of the wasp. – Qiong Wu
However, the researchers argued that the wasp probably did not intend to kill with the bizarre gripping structure.
Instead, they theoreted that the wasp injected eggs into the trapped body before they had released it and used the creature as an ignorant host for its eggs. His larvae then began their life as parasites in or on the body of the host and probably ate the host completely, said Vilhelmsen. The host was probably a flying insect like the wasp, he added.
Similarly, although no identical behavior was observed in living parasitoid wasp species. For example, a group of wasps, who are known as cuckoo wasps, lay their eggs in the nest of another wasp type, and the larval festival on the young of their new hosts as soon as they hatch.
Amber fossils offer a tempting, three -dimensional view of the distant past. In addition to plants and flowers, a dinosaur tail, a crab, hell, a spider mother and her boys and a fireflies were found in Globs of Tree Resin.
A fossil enthusiast bought the amber, which contained sirenobethylhylhylhylchalcharybdis, which came from the Kachin region near the border of Myanmar near the border with China and donated it to the main laboratory for insect development and environmental changes in the capital standard of Capital Normal University 2016.
Amber fossils have been some of the most exciting knowledge of paleontology in recent years, but ethical concerns about the overnight of amber from the region have emerged. Some paleontologists called for a moratorium to research amber core complaints from Myanmar after a military coup of 2021.
A reconstruction of sirenobethylus Charybdis shows the bizarre gripping structure of the wasp. – Xiaoran zuo
“Chalk period
The Sirenobethylus Charybdis of “Circulation” adds to a growing list of insects from this time that “had adjustments that lived outside the boundaries that are alive today,” said Phil Barden, Associate Professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, who worked with amber fossils.
“This is important because there are around one million known insect species – even with all this lively diversity, there are still many unexpected surprises in the fossil recording that go beyond the imagination,” said Barden, who was not involved in the study by e -mail.
Although it was plausible, the Flytrap hypothesis is “a bit speculative”.
“There seems to be clear evidence that the abdominal components have had a range of movement. There are also a number of Setae or hair that are in the right position to recognize hosts and potentially immobilize,” said Barden.
He said it was possible that the biological structures had another purpose, for example the detection of prey in the ground or maybe even for the transport of baby carpets.
“Today, thousands of Parasitoid species can immobilize without abdominal decreases. Why couldn’t these wasps simply rely on their stitch or incorporate their mouthpiece into the host conquest?” Asked bard.
Vilhelmsen said a key factor when interpreting the fossils by the colleagues was the place of the egg laying organ of the wasp direkt alongside the fall-like structure. However, all Sirenobethylus Charybdis specimens examined so far are female wasps, and so the researchers could not rule out that the structure could have played a role during pairing according to the study.
“This is something unique, something I had never expected and something that I couldn’t even imagine,” said Vilhelmsen. “It’s a 10 out of 10.”
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