Lars Vilhelmsen At the Natural History Museum in Denmark.
Vilhelmsen and his colleagues named him WASP Sirenobethylus charybdis After Charybdis, the sea monster of Homer’s magnificent poetry Odyssey. The insects lived in the Cretaceous period almost 99 million years ago.
Researchers used Micro-CT scan, an x-ray imaging technique, to examine 16 female hornets wrapped in amber found in the Kachin region of Myanmar.
All hornets had three flaps on their abdomen, making up a fastened structure. It suggests that it was preserved in different positions, sometimes open, and sometimes partially closed, suggesting that the insect is a mobile gripping device when it was alive.
“It was very exciting, but it was a challenge too, because how can you explain how this animal worked when there was nothing like it is today?” says Vilhelmsen.
So he and his colleagues took examples of living and extinct hornets and analyzed their traits. This revealed that the closest analogue of the amber wasp is a modern parasite species of the Superfamily Chrysidoid family. These include larvae that live in the host as parasites and kill them when they ultimately consume them.
He proposes that S. Charybdis They would have been ambushing potential victims, such as flying insects or jumping nymphs with their traps open. They will then close it and hold it down and lay eggs.
“This is a truly unique discovery.” Manuel Brasidek At the University of Rennes in France. “What I think is extraordinary is the abdomen of Sirenobethylus charybdis A brand new solution to the problems that all parasite insects have is how to keep the host moving while laying eggs or laying eggs inside them? ”
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Source: www.newscientist.com