TY - JOUR

T1 - Unparalleled details of soft tissues in a Cretaceous ant

AU - Zhuang, Yuhui

AU - Xu, Wenjing

AU - Zhang, Guojie

AU - Mai, Huijuan

AU - Li, Xiaoqin

AU - He, Hong

AU - Ran, Hao

AU - Liu, Yu

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s).

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - For social insects such as ants, the internal organs are likely important in understanding their eusocial behavior and evolution. Such organs, however, are rarely preserved on fossils. In each of the few cases reporting exceptionally fossilized soft tissues in arthropods, the nervous, muscular and cardiovascular systems have been described individually, but never in combination. Here, we report a female specimen (gyne) of the extinct ant group—†Zigrasimecia—included in a Cretaceous amber piece from Kachin, Myanmar, with an almost complete system formed by various internal organs. These include the brain, the main exocrine system, part of the digestive tract, and several muscle clusters. This research expands our knowledge of internal anatomy in stem group ants. As the gyne bears a morphologically unique labrum, our specimen’s internal and external features support the notion that the early ant may have special ecological habits during the Cretaceous period.

AB - For social insects such as ants, the internal organs are likely important in understanding their eusocial behavior and evolution. Such organs, however, are rarely preserved on fossils. In each of the few cases reporting exceptionally fossilized soft tissues in arthropods, the nervous, muscular and cardiovascular systems have been described individually, but never in combination. Here, we report a female specimen (gyne) of the extinct ant group—†Zigrasimecia—included in a Cretaceous amber piece from Kachin, Myanmar, with an almost complete system formed by various internal organs. These include the brain, the main exocrine system, part of the digestive tract, and several muscle clusters. This research expands our knowledge of internal anatomy in stem group ants. As the gyne bears a morphologically unique labrum, our specimen’s internal and external features support the notion that the early ant may have special ecological habits during the Cretaceous period.

KW - Amber

KW - Cretaceous

KW - Fossil

KW - Micro-CT

KW - Soft-tissue preservation

KW - Zigrasimecia

U2 - 10.1186/s12862-022-02099-2

DO - 10.1186/s12862-022-02099-2

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 36526958

AN - SCOPUS:85144106983

VL - 22

JO - BMC Ecology

JF - BMC Ecology

SN - 1472-6785

IS - 1

M1 - 146

ER -