Debris-carrying camouflage among diverse lineages of Cretaceous insects

View/ Open
Issue Date
2016-06-24Author
Wang, Bo
Xia, Fangyuan
Engel, Michael S.
Perrichot, Vincent
Shi, Gongle
Zhang, Haichun
Chen, Jun
Jarzembowski, Edmund A.
Wappler, Torsten
Rust, Jes
Publisher
Science Advances
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
Rights
Copyright © 2016, The Authors
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Insects have evolved diverse methods of camouflage that have played an important role in their evolutionary success. Debris-carrying, a behavior of actively harvesting and carrying exogenous materials, is among the most fascinating and complex behaviors because it requires not only an ability to recognize, collect, and carry materials but also evolutionary adaptations in related morphological characteristics. However, the fossil record of such behavior is extremely scarce, and only a single Mesozoic example from Spanish amber has been recorded; therefore, little is known about the early evolution of this complicated behavior and its underlying anatomy. We report a diverse insect assemblage of exceptionally preserved debris carriers from Cretaceous Burmese, French, and Lebanese ambers, including the earliest known chrysopoid larvae (green lacewings), myrmeleontoid larvae (split-footed lacewings and owlflies), and reduviids (assassin bugs). These ancient insects used a variety of debris material, including insect exoskeletons, sand grains, soil dust, leaf trichomes of gleicheniacean ferns, wood fibers, and other vegetal debris. They convergently evolved their debris-carrying behavior through multiple pathways, which expressed a high degree of evolutionary plasticity. We demonstrate that the behavioral repertoire, which is associated with considerable morphological adaptations, was already widespread among insects by at least the Mid-Cretaceous. Together with the previously known Spanish specimen, these fossils are the oldest direct evidence of camouflaging behavior in the fossil record. Our findings provide a novel insight into early evolution of camouflage in insects and ancient ecological associations among plants and insects.
Collections
Citation
Wang, B., F. Xia, M. S. Engel, V. Perrichot, G. Shi, H. Zhang, J. Chen, E. A. Jarzembowski, T. Wappler, and J. Rust. "Debris-carrying Camouflage among Diverse Lineages of Cretaceous Insects." Science Advances 2.6 (2016): n. pag. Web.
Items in KU ScholarWorks are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.
We want to hear from you! Please share your stories about how Open Access to this item benefits YOU.
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as: Copyright © 2016, The Authors
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.