Publication Date:
2013-02-22
Description:
The species of the Strashilidae (strashilids) have been the most perplexing of fossil insects from the Jurassic period of Russia and China. They have been widely considered to be ectoparasites of pterosaurs or feathered dinosaurs, based on the putative presence of piercing and sucking mouthparts and hind tibio-basitarsal pincers purportedly used to fix onto the host's hairs or feathers. Both the supposed host and parasite occur in the Daohugou beds from the Middle Jurassic epoch of China (approximately 165 million years ago). Here we analyse the morphology of strashilids from the Daohugou beds, and reach markedly different conclusions; namely that strashilids are highly specialized flies (Diptera) bearing large membranous wings, with substantial sexual dimorphism of the hind legs and abdominal extensions. The idea that they belong to an extinct order is unsupported, and the lineage can be placed within the true flies. In terms of major morphological and inferred behavioural features, strashilids resemble the recent (extant) and relict members of the aquatic fly family Nymphomyiidae. Their ontogeny are distinguished by the persistence in adult males of larval abdominal respiratory gills, representing a unique case of paedomorphism among endopterygote insects. Adult strashilids were probably aquatic or amphibious, shedding their wings after emergence and mating in the water.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Huang, Diying -- Nel, Andre -- Cai, Chenyang -- Lin, Qibin -- Engel, Michael S -- England -- Nature. 2013 Mar 7;495(7439):94-7. doi: 10.1038/nature11898. Epub 2013 Feb 20.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China. dyhuang@nigpas.ac.cn〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23426262" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Aquatic Organisms/physiology
;
China
;
Dinosaurs/parasitology
;
Diptera/*anatomy & histology/growth & development/*physiology
;
Female
;
*Fossils
;
*Freshwater Biology
;
Gills
;
Larva
;
Male
;
*Models, Biological
;
Sexual Behavior, Animal
;
Wings, Animal
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
Permalink
