Paleontologists say they have discovered the first fossil of an Australian sawfly species. Baladi Waru discovered at McGrath Flat in central New South Wales.
Baladi Waru They lived in Australia during the Miocene epoch, 11 to 16 million years ago.
This species belongs to Ericaceae a family of medium-sized sawflies native to the Western Hemisphere and Australian region.
“Despite their name, sawflies are a type of wasp rather than a fly, and spitfires are the most widely recognized group of sawfly species in Australia,” said CSIRO palaeontologist Dr Juanita Rodriguez and colleagues. .
“They are called sawflies because they have a saw-like ovipositor that is used to lay eggs. They also lack the typical wasp waist, so they can be mistaken for flies.”
“The family Sawidae includes 441 species, of which 276 are found in the Americas (mostly South America) and 165 in the Australian region,” the researchers added.
“Most adult females lay eggs on suitable host plants, and the larvae feed on plant tissue, often in dense clusters.”
“The sawflies are part of a large swarm of plant-eating sawflies that make up the early order Hymenoptera, with more than 7,000 species.”
“Currently, only two representative fossils of the Pergidae family are known. Fonsecadaria perfectus and Fonsecadaria Propincus”
rebuilding the life of Baladi Waru. Image credit: Alex Boersma.
fossil of Baladi Waru Discovered in 2018 mcgrath flat a fossil site located approximately 25 km northeast of Galgong in central New South Wales.
“We examined the fossils and their morphology and combined this information with molecular and morphological data from a broad sample of modern sawfly species,” Dr. Rodriguez said.
“This helped decipher the fossil's place in the sawfly tree of life.”
“We used the age and location of the fossils to prove that sawflies originated in the Cretaceous period, about 100 million years ago, meaning that the sawfly's ancient ancestors lived in Gondwana.”
“When this supercontinent broke up, sawflies ended up in Australia and South America.”
“When we examined the fossils, we found pollen grains on the sawfly's head, indicating that the sawfly was visiting the flowering period.” Quintinia plant. “
“This helped our team track complex species interactions in the McGrath Flat paleoenvironment.”
Reconstruction of Miocene McGrath Flat. Image credit: Alex Boersma.
“This discovery will help researchers track the evolution and distribution of sawflies,” said Dr Michael Frese, a palaeontologist at the University of Canberra and a visiting researcher at CSIRO.
“In particular, this discovery helped us understand the amazing ability of sawflies to eat poisonous plants.”
“They eat the leaves of the Myrtaceae family (a family of woody plants that includes eucalyptus) because of their mouthparts and chemical detoxification systems in their intestines that separate out toxic oils when they eat leaves. Because I have it.”
“This allows the larvae, also known as spitfires, to use the oil as a defensive weapon.”
“Looking at the bigger picture, our study will help researchers understand their current distribution in Australia and across the Americas.”
“This special species, Baladi Waru were extinct millions of years ago, but it provides information about native pollinators so we can understand their evolution and impact on the present. ”
Regarding this discovery, paper Published in the magazine on October 17th systematic entomology.
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Juanita Rodriguez others. A new highly preserved sawfly fossil (Hymenoptera: Pergidae) and evaluation of its usefulness in estimating divergence times and biogeography. systematic entomology published online October 17, 2024. doi: 10.1111/syen.12653
Source: www.sci.news
