Aethiocarenus

Aethiocarenus
Temporal range: 99 Ma
↓
Specimen in amber
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Animalia
Clade:Euarthropoda
Class:Insecta
Order:†Aethiocarenodea
Poinar & Brown, 2017
Family:†Aethiocarenidae
Poinar & Brown, 2017
Genus:†Aethiocarenus
Poinar & Brown, 2017
Species: †A. burmanicus'
Binomial name
Aethiocarenus burmanicus'
Poinar & Brown, 2017

Aethiocarenus is an extinct genus of insects which has a single species (Aethiocarenus burmanicus) described from a 98.79 ±0.62 million year old fossil found in amber from the Hukawng Valley of Myanmar. The insect is unusual due to the vertex of the triangular head being attached to the pronotum as opposed to the hypotenuse. Aethiocarenus is the sole member of the family Aethiocarenidae and order Aethiocarenodea.[1] However, Aethiocarenus may actually be based on a nymph of Alienopterus.[2] Vršanský et al. (2018) considered Aethiocarenus to be an alienopterid nymph, but considered it distinct from other members of this group and deserving a separate genus rank.[3]

Description

Aethiocarenus was probably an omnivore and had a long, narrow, flat body, and long slender legs. The eyes are at the sides of the head, allowing the insect to look behind. Glands on the neck indicate that the creature may have emitted chemicals to repel predators.[4][5]

References

  1. ↑ Poinar, George; Brown, Alex E. (2017). "An exotic insect Aethiocarenus burmanicus gen. et sp. nov. (Aethiocarenodea ord. nov., Aethiocarenidae fam. nov.) from mid-Cretaceous Myanmar amber". Cretaceous Research. 72: 100–104. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2016.12.011. (Same at researchgate - free)
  2. ↑ Hörnig, Marie K.; Haug, Joachim T.; Haug, Carolin (2017). "An exceptionally preserved 110 million years old praying mantis provides new insights into the predatory behavior of early mantodeans". PeerJ. doi:10.7717/peerj.3605.
  3. ↑ Peter Vršanský; Günter Bechly; Qingqing Zhang; Edmund A. Jarzembowski; Tomáš Mlynský; Lucia Šmídová; Peter Barna; Matúš Kúdela; Danil Aristov; Sonia Bigalk; Lars Krogmann; Liqin Li; Qi Zhang; Haichun Zhang; Sieghard Ellenberger; Patrick Müller; Carsten Gröhn; Fangyuan Xia; Kyoichiro Ueda; Peter Vďačný; Daniel Valaška; Lucia Vršanská; Bo Wang (2018). "Batesian insect-insect mimicry-related explosive radiation of ancient alienopterid cockroaches". Biologia. 73 (10): 987–1006. doi:10.2478/s11756-018-0117-3.
  4. ↑ "Ancient, scary and alien-looking specimen forms a rarity in the insect world – a new order". Oregon State University, News and Research Communications. 2017-01-25. Retrieved 2017-01-27.
  5. ↑ Hrala, Josh. "This Scary, Alien-Like Specimen Trapped in Amber Represents a Brand New Order of Insect". ScienceAlert. Retrieved 2017-02-07.


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