This ancient ‘Venus fly-trap' wasp used its butt to kill
Prehistoric insects encased in amber reveal a terrifying evolutionary road that dead-ended sometime after the mid-Cretaceous period. After examining multiple roughly 99-million-year-old specimens, researchers believe the extinct wasp species featured Venus flytrap-like abdomen appendages for capturing other insects. Once pinned down, the wasp then laid its eggs inside its prey. The findings are detailed in a study published March 26 in the journal BMC Biology.
An estimated 10 percent of all known insects are parasitoids—species whose larvae gestate inside hosts before eventually killing them. But none alive today resemble the Cretaceous era's Sirenobethylus charybdis, according to this new research. After recently analyzing 16 amber-preserved female specimens uncovered in northern Myanmar's Kachin region, an international team of researchers from China's Capital Normal University and the Natural History Museum of Denmark believe S. charybdis may represent an entirely new insect family. They reached their conclusion after observing the parasitoid's distinct hind wing vein patterns, which differ greatly from today's Chrysidoidea superfamily that includes cuckoo and bethylid wasps.
However, the hind wings aren't its only striking features. S. charybdis appears to have evolved a unique, three-flapped abdominal setup similar to the leaves of a Venus flytrap. The paddle-like lower flap is particularly distinctive due to its hair-like bristles.
'The abdominal apparatus of Sirenobethylus is unlike anything previously reported from any extant wasp or indeed any insect known to us,' the team wrote in their study.
Researchers posited two theories to explain the anatomy. The first hypothesis is that the females used their jawlike flaps to grip males during mating. While the team doesn't have any male specimens to study (yet), they still think this behavior was unlikely.
'Indeed, it would be unique for insect females to restrain the males during mating, rather than the other way around,' they added.
They then offered another, far creepier explanation. S. charybdis may have used its appendages to trap potential victims, but instead of devouring its prey, the wasp likely held it down in order to deposit its eggs inside. This possibly allowed S. charybdis to wait for a more mobile winged or jumping bug to appear. If the target triggered the hairlike bristles, then the appendage flaps closed around it until the deed was done. Given that its stinger was located on the middle flap's dorsal side, experts also believe S. charybdis may have even stung the trapped larvae host in the process.
It's currently unclear when the horrifying wasp died out, or why later insects didn't have this appendage. Still, the discovery indicates that at least some early Chrysidoidea species started developing parasitoid strategies by the mid-Cretaceous. For however long it lived on Earth, S. charybdis seems to have lived up to its namesake: Charybdis, the mythical Greek sea monster from The Odyssey that lurked underwater waiting to devour unsuspecting sailors.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Paleontologists dig through fossilized dino guts to see what's inside
Nothing quite fits the moniker 'gentle giant' more than sauropods. These gargantuan dinosaurs could reach up to 123 feet long and weigh up to seven tons. Sauropods have long been believed to be herbivores, munching on leaves during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Now, for the first time, a team of paleontologists have studied the abdomen of a sauropod with its gut contents still intact that lived roughly 94 to 101 million years ago. The finding confirms that they were in fact herbivores–and did not really chew their food. Instead, sauropods relied on gut microbes to break down its food. The findings are detailed in a study published June 9 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology. 'No genuine sauropod gut contents had ever been found anywhere before, despite sauropods being known from fossils found on every continent and despite the group being known to span at least 130 million years of time,' Stephen Poropat, a study co-author and paleontologist at Curtin University in Australia, said in a statement. 'This finding confirms several hypotheses about the sauropod diet that had been made based on studies of their anatomy and comparisons with modern-day animals.' Fossilized dinosaur bones can only tell us so much about these extinct animals. Paleontologists can use trackways and footprints to learn about their movement and preserved gut contents called cololites to put together what their diets may have looked like. Understanding the diet is critical for understanding their biology and the role they played in ancient ecosystems, but very few dinosaur fossils have been found with cololites. These are gut contents that have yet to become poop–or coprolites. In particular, sauropod cololites have remained elusive. With their gargantuan sizes, these dinosaurs may have been the most ecologically impactful terrestrial herbivores on the planet during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. With this lack of direct dietary evidence, the specifics of sauropod herbivory—including the plants that they ate—have mostly been theorized based largely on tooth wear, jaw shape and size, and neck length. But that changed in the summer of 2017. Staff and volunteers at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History were excavating a relatively complete subadult sauropod skeleton. This particular Diamantinasaurus matildae specimen lived during the mid-Cretaceous period and was uncovered in the Winton Formation of Queensland, Australia. The team noticed an unusual, fractured rock layer that appeared to contain the sauropod's cololite with well-preserved plant fossils. The team analyzed the plant specimens within the cololite and found that sauropods likely only engaged in minimal oral processing of their food. Instead of chewing, their gut microbiota would ferment the plants to digest it. The cololite had a wide variety of plants, including foliage from conifers (cone-bearing seed plants), seed-fern fruiting bodies (plant structures that hold seeds), and leaves from angiosperms (flowering plants). From this, it looks like Diamantinasaurus was an indiscriminate, bulk feeder. 'The plants within show evidence of having been severed, possibly bitten, but have not been chewed, supporting the hypothesis of bulk feeding in sauropods,' said Poropat. The team also found chemical biomarkers of both angiosperms and gymnosperms—a group of woody, seed-producing plants that include conifers. [ Related: The mystery of why some dinosaurs got so enormous. ] 'This implies that at least some sauropods were not selective feeders, instead eating whatever plants they could reach and safely process,' Poropat said. 'These findings largely corroborate past ideas regarding the enormous influence that sauropods must have had on ecosystems worldwide during the Mesozoic Era.' Although it was not unexpected that the gut contents provided support for sauropod herbivory and bulk feeding, Poropat was surprised to find angiosperms in the dinosaur's gut. 'Angiosperms became approximately as diverse as conifers in Australia around 100 to 95 million years ago, when this sauropod was alive,' he says. 'This suggests that sauropods had successfully adapted to eat flowering plants within 40 million years of the first evidence of the presence of these plants in the fossil record.' Based on these findings, the team suggests that Diamantinasaurus likely fed on both low- and high-growing plants, at least before adulthood. As hatchlings, sauropods would have only been able to access food that was close to the ground. As they grew (and grew and grew), their viable food options also expanded. Additionally, the prevalence of small shoots, bracts, and seed pods in the cololite implies that subadult Diamantinasaurus likely targeted new growth portions of conifers and seed ferns. These portions of the plant are easier to digest. According to the authors, the strategy of indiscriminate bulk feeding likely served sauropods well for 130 million years. However, as with most studies, there are some important caveats and limitations. 'The primary limitation of this study is that the sauropod gut contents we describe constitute a single data point,' Poropat explained. 'These gut contents only tell us about the last meal or several meals of a single subadult sauropod individual.' We also don't know how the seasons affected diet, or if the plants preserved in this specific sauropod represent a diet typical of a healthy sauropod or a more stressed one. The specimen is also a subabult, which could mean that younger sauropods had this more than adults did. Despite the limitations, it offers an exciting look inside the stomachs of some of the largest creatures to ever live.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Our planet's oxygen levels will drop, and there's no way to stop it
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, BGR may receive an affiliate commission. It's no secret that Earth is doomed. Sure, there's the threat of climate change and the fact that sea levels are rising around the world. But that's not what we're talking about. Instead, our planet's impending doom is actually set to happen billions of years from now, long after we're all gone, when the oxygen levels drop and life as we know it ceases to exist. When this change occurs, it's going to happen pretty rapidly, a study published a few years ago claims. It will be similar to the Great Oxidation Event (GOE) that happened over 2.4 billion years ago. Back then, oxygen flooded the Earth's atmosphere, giving birth to life as we know it today, or at least its earliest evolutionary forms. Today's Top Deals Best deals: Tech, laptops, TVs, and more sales Best Ring Video Doorbell deals Memorial Day security camera deals: Reolink's unbeatable sale has prices from $29.98 Researchers have long argued that atmospheric oxygen, which humans need to breathe, is unlikely to be a feature of habitable worlds forever. We've seen other planets around us that appear to have been stripped of their oxygen, like Mars and Venus. And many argue that Earth is set to see a similar future at some point down the line. Of course, the factors resulting in dropping oxygen levels are complex. Not only do we have natural global warming to blame, but human-driven climate change could also play a large role in the end of life on Earth as we know it. Models suggest that Earth's oxygen levels could drop as low as those of Archean Earth, when microbial life was the only life to be found on our little blue and green planet. Those levels of oxygen would, obviously, not be ideal for people or animals that require oxygen to breathe. Of course, there is always the chance that we manage to get off Earth and settle somewhere else before Earth becomes uninhabitable, but if we don't, and humans are still alive billions of years from now, then it will be the end of the road. Overall, Earth's future billions of years from now is looking pretty bleak. Scientists estimate that the sun will explode, effectively ending life in our solar system some 2 billion years from now. Before that happens, life on Earth will change drastically, as oxygen levels are expected to drop almost a million times lower than today, researchers told New Scientist. Luckily, the end of the world isn't the most pressing problem we have to face at the moment, though there are arguments about how we could possibly delay the inevitable. Even if we did, there's not really anything we could do about it but hope Elon Musk and NASA's plan to put humans on Mars in the 2030s works out. More Top Deals Amazon gift card deals, offers & coupons 2025: Get $2,000+ free See the
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Six planets are visible in the sky in June. Which ones are they?
Six planets in the solar system will be visible in the earth sky this June. According to the Farmers' Almanac , Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn and Neptune will be visible throughout June. Jupiter will be visible only early in the month. Here's more on what you can find in the sky this June. The Farmers' Almanac states that Mercury will be visible in the sky west of the sunset until July 6. More: Cicadas are emerging in Pennsylvania, but you may not be hearing them yet. Here's why Venus will be visible throughout June. According to NASA, Venus will be the most visible approximately 2 hours before sunrise, "...shines brightly, low in the eastern sky..." each morning throughout June. NASA states the planet will be visible in the west for a few hours post-sunset throughout June, dropping lower in the sky as the month progresses. The Farmers' Almanac says Saturn will be visible by looking east and southeast before sunrise all month. NASA notes Saturn will rise around 3 a.m. in the early portion of June, and by 1 a.m. as July approaches. Neptune will appear to the lower left corner of Saturn. You will have to look east and southeast before the sunrise all month. Jupiter will be visible at a very low position in the sky looking westward the first week of June. From the second week on, the sun's glare will render viewing impossible according to NASA. Jupiter will be visible in the morning sky in July. Could an asteroid strike Earth?: NASA is tracking asteroid that is closing in on our planet Uranus and Pluto will not be visible this month, according to the Farmers' Almanac. Both Jupiter and Uranus are predicted to be visible in the sky during July. Pluto is very difficult to see, even with a backyard telescope, as it looks fainter than most stars. Contact Nicholas Sorensen at Nsorensen@ This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: How to view Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, Neptune and Jupiter in June
