The broken parts of the small genitals of a small Cretaceous insect were recently reassembled after spending more than a decade apart.
Researchers have described a new species of assassin from a strikingly well-preserved fossil dating to about 50 million years ago. At the time of the discovery of the fossil in Colorado in 2006, it was divided in the middle; when the rock around it cracked in two, each half held half the body of the insect. The distribution was almost perfect, but a small structure called a pygophore – the genus of the male insect, about the size of a grain of rice – was broken in such a way that its original shape was obscured, the scientists unveil in a statement.
A fossil dealer sells the two pieces to different buyers. But when researchers united the fossil halves and analyzed them together, their view of the genitals enabled them to identify the bug as a newly discovered species, they report in a new study.
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Killers are very successful predatory insects with about 7,000 recognized species, but only about 50 known fossils, said lead author Daniel Swanson, a graduate student in entomology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).
“It just speaks to the improbability of even having a fossil, let alone one of this century, that offers so much information,” Swanson said in the statement. He and his colleagues published their findings on the fossil in the journal on Monday (January 19) Papers in paleontology.
They call the new species Aphelicophontes danjuddi; the species name commemorates fossil collector Dan Judd, “in honor of his gracious donation of the counterpart to the Illinois Natural History Survey Paleontology Collection,” the researchers wrote. The researchers said that the species of the insect comes from ‘aphelicus’, a Latin word for ‘old’ and ‘fonts’, which is Latin for ‘slayer’ or ‘killer’.
“Almost unheard of”
The insect, which was 12.4 millimeters long, has an elongated and slender body and alternating light and dark bands on its legs. Female assassins are usually larger than males, and it is likely that females of this species are larger than this monster, according to the scientists. Next to one of the legs is a small beetle that fossilized at the same time; Although the assassin dropped beetles on the prey, it is unknown whether this particular beetle was the victim of the larger insect’s murderous attack, according to the study.
The pygophore, located at the base of the abdomen, is no more than 3.1 mm (0.1 inch) long. Unique traits in male genitals develop rapidly, so they are often used to distinguish between closely related types of assassins, the scientists reported.
However, it is not the oldest fossil evidence of genitals. The distinction belongs to a fossil of a type of arachnid called a crop farmer (or pappa long-legged) that dates from about 400 million to 412 million years ago during the Devonian period (416 million to 358 million years ago).
Two petrified harvesters, one male and one female, were discovered with their respective genitals intact, at a site in what is now Scotland. In the fossils, paleontologists could see a penis in the male and an ovipositor, or an egg-laying structure, in the female, researchers reported in the journal in 2003. Paleontology.
“There are also numerous fossil insects in amber as old as the Cretaceous that have been preserved with genitals,” said co-author Sam Heads, a paleontologist at the UIUC’s Natural History Survey in Illinois. In one memorable example, a 41-million-year-old piece of amber not only preserved the genitals of a few flies, but also the moment they used their naughty bits, to catch the insects in mating, Live Science. previously reported.
However, maintaining high quality of intact insect genitals in rock, such as in the assassin’s fossil, is almost unheard of, “said Heads.
Originally published on Live Science.