David Peris

Ticks parasitised feathered dinosaurs as revealed by Cretaceous amber assemblages

Ticks are currently among the most prevalent blood-feeding ectoparasites, but their feeding habits and hosts in deep time have long remained speculative. Here, we report direct and indirect evidence in 99 million-year-old Cretaceous amber showing that hard ticks and ticks of the extinct new family Deinocrotonidae fed on blood from feathered dinosaurs, non-avialan or avialan excluding crown-group birds. A †Cornupalpatum burmanicum hard tick is entangled in a pennaceous feather. Two deinocrotonids described as †Deinocroton draculi gen. et sp. nov. have specialised setae from dermestid beetle larvae (hastisetae) attached to their bodies, likely indicating cohabitation in a feathered dinosaur nest. A third conspecific specimen is blood-engorged, its anatomical features suggesting that deinocrotonids fed rapidly to engorgement and had multiple gonotrophic cycles. These findings provide insight into early tick evolution and ecology, and shed light on poorly known arthropod–vertebrate interactions and potential disease transmission during the Mesozoic.Fossils of ticks are rare, and little is known about their ancient hosts. Here, Peñalver and colleagues describe ticks in Cretaceous amber, including representatives of the new family Deinocrotonidae, which are associated with a dinosaur feather and nest biota.

An earwig (Insecta: Dermaptera) in Early Cretaceous amber from Spain

The order Dermaptera (earwigs) is recorded for the first time from the Early Cretaceous ambers of Spain. Autrigonoforceps ibericaEngel et Peris gen. et sp. n. is described and figured from a single, putative ♀ preserved in Albian amber from Penacerrada I. Due to its trimerous tarsi and the absence of ocelli, the placement of the new fossil within the Neodermaptera is clear. Although it seems close to Labiduridae, its confident placement in any family is impossible given the limited visibility of several critical characters. The species is compared with the labidurid Myrrholabiafrom mid-Cretaceous amber of Myanmar.

Cretamerus vulloi gen. et sp. nov., the oldest bark-gnawing beetle (Coleoptera: Trogossitidae) from Cretaceous amber

Cretamerus vulloi gen. et sp. nov., a fossil bark-gnawing beetle (Cleroidea: Trogossitidae), is described from the Cretaceous amber (Cenomanian) of Fouras/Bois-Vert, France. It is the oldest known record confirmed for the entire superfamily Cleroidea on the European continent. The fine state of preservation and the transparency of the amber matrix make it possible to determine certain morphological character states for the fossil and insert them into a character matrix of Trogossitidae genera to suggest an internal phylogenetic position for C. vulloi. The resulting tree reveals the basal position of C. vulloi within the lophocaterine clade and it is proposed that it may form an extinct branch of the Recent Decamerini. Some remarks on the palaeobiogeography of the Trogossitidae are also provided. Two other possible Trogossitidae from the Cretaceous amber (Albian) of Spain are also discussed and figured. http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:66D7911E-E338-414B-B072-BAE0B0400201

New species from Late Cretaceous New Jersey amber and stasis in subfamily Attageninae (Insecta: Coleoptera: Dermestidae)

Abstract. A new fossil species of Dermestidae (Insecta: Coleoptera), preserved in Late Cretaceous (Turonian) amber from New Jersey, is described as Attagenus (Aethriostoma) turonianensis n. sp. The specimen is fossilized in translucent amber, but 3D imaging using propagation phase-contrast X-ray synchrotron microtomography allowed detailed classification and description. This species is the oldest representative of the subfamily Attageninae and the third fossil species described in the family from the entire Mesozoic. Dermestidae comprise beetle species that typically feed on carcasses, although some Recent species of Attagenus Latreille, 1802 are known to feed on plant debris, which is highly abundant in amber deposit sediments. This new species is evidence for diversification in the family during the Early Cretaceous as well as long morphological conservation of diagnostic features of the genus Attagenus from the Late Cretaceous. Analyzing the taxa from Mesozoic ambers that show stasis, the small size of the specimens together with a specific ecology could explain the stability of these lineages.

Fossil Monotomidae (Coleoptera: Polyphaga) from Laurasian Cretaceous amber

Three new species of root-eating beetle (Coleoptera: Monotomidae) in Cretaceous amber from Spain (Albian) and Myanmar (Cenomanian) are described. Rhizophtoma longus sp. nov. is a Spanish monotomid of the tribe Rhizophtomini, previously only known from Lebanese amber (Aptian). The Cretakarenniini tribe nov. is created to include the new species Cretakarenni birmanicus gen. et sp. nov., from Myanmar, and Cretakarenni hispanicus gen. et sp. nov., from Spain. These three new species, together with the previous fossil species known in this family, have a controversial set of characters that makes it extremely difficult to place them in any other extant group of Monotomidae. Fossil monotomids are not numerous, despite their early diverging placement among the cucujoid clade. An updated list of monotomid fossils is provided. The need to classify the new taxa and compare them with extant and extinct groups of Monotomidae is solved using a key for the subfamilies and tribes.

Early Cretaceous origin of pollen‐feeding beetles (Insecta: Coleoptera: Oedemeridae)

The taxonomic position of a new pollen‐feeding fossil beetle from Spanish amber (late Albian, 105 Ma) is analysed. A phylogenetic analysis allows me to accommodate Darwinylus marcosi gen. et sp. nov. in the Polyphaga: Oedemeridae within current limits for the family, which clearly belongs in the subfamily Oedemerinae. It corresponds to the oldest definitive record for the family. Some autapomorphies, mainly in antennae, are observable in the fossil compared with extant members of the family. A discussion about these problematic characters and the evolution of the family is proposed.

Arthropods in modern resins reveal if amber accurately recorded forest arthropod communities

Significance It is not known whether the fossil content of amber accurately represents the arthropod biodiversity of past forests, and if and how those fossils can be compared with recent fauna for studies and predictions of biodiversity change through time. Our study of arthropods (mainly insects and spiders) living around the resinous angiosperm tree Hymenaea verrucosa Gaertner, 1791 in the lowland coastal forest of Madagascar, and arthropods trapped by the resin produced by this tree species, demonstrates that amber does not record the true past biodiversity of the entire forest. However, our results reveal how taphonomic processes, arthropod behaviors, and ecological relationships can influence arthropod death assemblages in resins and play a crucial role in controlling their taxonomic compositions. Amber is an organic multicompound derivative from the polymerization of resin of diverse higher plants. Compared with other modes of fossil preservation, amber records the anatomy of and ecological interactions between ancient soft-bodied organisms with exceptional fidelity. However, it is currently suggested that ambers do not accurately record the composition of arthropod forest paleocommunities, due to crucial taphonomic biases. We evaluated the effects of taphonomic processes on arthropod entrapment by resin from the plant Hymenaea, one of the most important resin-producing trees and a producer of tropical Cenozoic ambers and Anthropocene (or subfossil) resins. We statistically compared natural entrapment by Hymenaea verrucosa tree resin with the ensemble of arthropods trapped by standardized entomological traps around the same tree species. Our results demonstrate that assemblages in resin are more similar to those from sticky traps than from malaise traps, providing an accurate representation of the arthropod fauna living in or near the resiniferous tree, but not of entire arthropod forest communities. Particularly, arthropod groups such as Lepidoptera, Collembola, and some Diptera are underrepresented in resins. However, resin assemblages differed slightly from sticky traps, perhaps because chemical compounds in the resins attract or repel specific insect groups. Ground-dwelling or flying arthropods that use the tree-trunk habitat for feeding or reproduction are also well represented in the resin assemblages, implying that fossil inclusions in amber can reveal fundamental information about biology of the past. These biases have implications for the paleoecological interpretation of the fossil record, principally of Cenozoic amber with angiosperm origin.

Publisher Correction: Ticks parasitised feathered dinosaurs as revealed by Cretaceous amber assemblages

The originally published version of this Article was updated shortly after publication to add the word ‘Ticks’ to the title, following its inadvertent removal during the production process. This has now been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article.

The case of Darwinylus marcosi (Insecta: Coleoptera: Oedemeridae): A Cretaceous shift from a gymnosperm to an angiosperm pollinator mutualism

ABSTRACT Abundant gymnosperm pollen grains associated with the oedemerid beetle Darwinylus marcosi Peris, 2016 were found in Early Cretaceous amber from Spain. This discovery provides confirmatory evidence for a pollination mutualism during the mid Mesozoic for the family Oedemeridae (Coleoptera), which today is known to pollinate only angiosperms. As a result, this new record documents a lateral host-plant transfer from an earlier gymnosperm to a later angiosperm, indicating that pollination of the latter is a derived condition within Oedemeridae. This new fossil record exemplifies one of the 4 ecological-evolutionary pollinator cohorts now known to have existed during the global shift from a gymnosperm to an angiosperm dominated global flora. Currently, all direct evidence for pollination during the 35 million-year interval of the mid Cretaceous gymnosperm-to-angiosperm transition entails recognition of gymnosperm pollen grains on insect mouthparts and other body contact surfaces, while analogous records involving angiosperms are lacking. The gathering evidence indicates that angiosperm pollination was preceded by at least 4 gymnosperm pollination modes that served as a functional and ecological prelude to the rise and expansion of angiosperms.