Unparalleled details of soft tissues in a Cretaceous ant

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  • Yuhui Zhuang
  • Wenjing Xu
  • KU, thw266
  • Huijuan Mai
  • Xiaoqin Li
  • Hong He
  • Hao Ran
  • Yu Liu
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.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
Artikelnummer146
TidsskriftBMC Ecology and Evolution
Vol/bind22
Udgave nummer1
Antal sider10
ISSN2730-7182
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2022

Bibliografisk note

Funding Information:
This study was supported by the following grants from the Natural Science Foundation of Yunnan Province: 2015HA021 and 2019DG050.

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

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