The Taiwanese research team announced the discovery of a new species of prehistoric beetle in amber, the Chen Rui pattern carved firefly
According to Science Network: On August 29, a scientific research team from Taiwan announced that a new species of prehistoric beetle had been found in amber. The findings were published in the prestigious international journal Cretaceous Studies in the field of paleontology and geology.
The research was conducted by Xiao Yun, a member of the Shi Tanji Scientific Team and a scientist from Taiwan (a joint phD student jointly trained by the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Organization - Australian National Entomological Museum and the Institute of Biology of the Australian National University) and Dr. Huang Jialong. This species is the seventh Burmese amber firefly species currently found in the world, and the first record in the Mesozoic fossil record of the subfamily Fluorenidae, the new species is named: Chen Rui Pattern Carved Firefly, scientific name: Ornatomalthinus ruicheni Hsiao & Huang, 2018, its genus name prefix Ornato- (decoration) refers to the carved markings of the wing sheath of this genus species, The name of the species commends the research materials discovered and provided by Dr. Rui Chen, a scientist at the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Cantharidae, a family of coleoptera (beetles), is known to be more than 5,000 living species, belonging to 5 subfamilies. They are generally slender, soft elytra, and a variety of species with bright colors, often seen that they live on flowers, adult insects are mainly carnivorous, will prey on small invertebrates, but also eat nectar, for one of the pollinators, the first author of this study Xiao Yun has long studied the systematic taxonomy of living flower fireflies, and has published a description of 12 new species.
The amber fossil record of the flower firefly is rich, but mostly concentrated in the Cenozoic amber, the oldest fossil record can be traced back to the Spanish amber of the Early Cretaceous Period, and there are six cases of flower fireflies in the Myanmar biota, and the species discovered this time is the first record of the subfamily Fluorescence, and it is worth mentioning that Xiao Yun's rosetta origin small flower firefly published earlier in 2017 is the first record of the subfamily Of the spiny flower fireflies.
This study confirmed that this male flower firefly is a species of the genus Stencilous fireflies by comparing the genus level differences between the living flower fireflies and the differences in the dichotomy of the same species, and is a completely new species different from the previous descriptions, which is the second case record of this genus. The appearance of the flower fireflies in Memper is already quite close to that of living flower fireflies, from the slender head, mouthparts and body of the carved fireflies and the slender and petal-like feet, these flower fireflies are likely to have the ecological habit of visiting flowers, Zhang et al. (2018) The rise of flowering plants in the late Mesozoic Era was thought to be the propeller that led to the rapid diversification of beetles, and the abundance of flower fireflies in Memper is the best left evidence.
The research paper on this discovery was published today in Cretaceous Research, a prestigious international journal in the field of paleontology and geology.
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