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The semi-aquatic pondweed bugs of a Cretaceous swamp

Pondweed bugs (Hemiptera: Mesoveliidae), considered a sister group to all other Gerromorpha, are exceedingly rare as fossils. Therefore, each new discovery of a fossil mesoveliid is of high interest, giving new insight into their early evolutionary history and diversity and enabling the testing of t...

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Autores principales: Sánchez-García, Alba, Nel, André, Arillo, Antonio, Solórzano Kraemer, Mónica M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5590552/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28890856
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3760
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author Sánchez-García, Alba
Nel, André
Arillo, Antonio
Solórzano Kraemer, Mónica M.
author_facet Sánchez-García, Alba
Nel, André
Arillo, Antonio
Solórzano Kraemer, Mónica M.
author_sort Sánchez-García, Alba
collection PubMed
description Pondweed bugs (Hemiptera: Mesoveliidae), considered a sister group to all other Gerromorpha, are exceedingly rare as fossils. Therefore, each new discovery of a fossil mesoveliid is of high interest, giving new insight into their early evolutionary history and diversity and enabling the testing of their proposed relationships. Here, we report the discovery of new mesoveliid material from Spanish Lower Cretaceous (Albian) amber, which is the first such find in Spanish amber. To date, fossil records of this family only include one species from French Kimmeridgian as compression fossils, two species in French amber (Albian-Cenomanian boundary), and one in Dominican amber (Miocene). The discovery of two males and one female described and figured as Glaesivelia pulcherrima Sánchez-García & Solórzano Kraemer gen. et sp. n., and a single female described and figured as Iberovelia quisquilia Sánchez-García & Nel, gen. et sp. n., reveals novel combinations of traits related to some genera currently in the subfamily Mesoveliinae. Brief comments about challenges facing the study of fossil mesoveliids are provided, showing the necessity for a revision of the existing phylogenetic hypotheses. Some of the specimens were studied using infrared microscopy, a promising alternative to the systematic study of organisms preserved in amber that cannot be clearly visualised. The new taxa significantly expand the fossil record of the family and shed new light on its palaeoecology. The fossils indicate that Mesoveliidae were certainly diverse by the Cretaceous and that numerous tiny cryptic species living in humid terrestrial to marginal aquatic habitats remain to be discovered. Furthermore, the finding of several specimens as syninclusions suggests aggregative behaviour, thereby representing the earliest documented evidence of such ethology.
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spelling pubmed-55905522017-09-08 The semi-aquatic pondweed bugs of a Cretaceous swamp Sánchez-García, Alba Nel, André Arillo, Antonio Solórzano Kraemer, Mónica M. PeerJ Ecology Pondweed bugs (Hemiptera: Mesoveliidae), considered a sister group to all other Gerromorpha, are exceedingly rare as fossils. Therefore, each new discovery of a fossil mesoveliid is of high interest, giving new insight into their early evolutionary history and diversity and enabling the testing of their proposed relationships. Here, we report the discovery of new mesoveliid material from Spanish Lower Cretaceous (Albian) amber, which is the first such find in Spanish amber. To date, fossil records of this family only include one species from French Kimmeridgian as compression fossils, two species in French amber (Albian-Cenomanian boundary), and one in Dominican amber (Miocene). The discovery of two males and one female described and figured as Glaesivelia pulcherrima Sánchez-García & Solórzano Kraemer gen. et sp. n., and a single female described and figured as Iberovelia quisquilia Sánchez-García & Nel, gen. et sp. n., reveals novel combinations of traits related to some genera currently in the subfamily Mesoveliinae. Brief comments about challenges facing the study of fossil mesoveliids are provided, showing the necessity for a revision of the existing phylogenetic hypotheses. Some of the specimens were studied using infrared microscopy, a promising alternative to the systematic study of organisms preserved in amber that cannot be clearly visualised. The new taxa significantly expand the fossil record of the family and shed new light on its palaeoecology. The fossils indicate that Mesoveliidae were certainly diverse by the Cretaceous and that numerous tiny cryptic species living in humid terrestrial to marginal aquatic habitats remain to be discovered. Furthermore, the finding of several specimens as syninclusions suggests aggregative behaviour, thereby representing the earliest documented evidence of such ethology. PeerJ Inc. 2017-09-05 /pmc/articles/PMC5590552/ /pubmed/28890856 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3760 Text en ©2017 Sánchez-García et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Ecology
Sánchez-García, Alba
Nel, André
Arillo, Antonio
Solórzano Kraemer, Mónica M.
The semi-aquatic pondweed bugs of a Cretaceous swamp
title The semi-aquatic pondweed bugs of a Cretaceous swamp
title_full The semi-aquatic pondweed bugs of a Cretaceous swamp
title_fullStr The semi-aquatic pondweed bugs of a Cretaceous swamp
title_full_unstemmed The semi-aquatic pondweed bugs of a Cretaceous swamp
title_short The semi-aquatic pondweed bugs of a Cretaceous swamp
title_sort semi-aquatic pondweed bugs of a cretaceous swamp
topic Ecology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5590552/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28890856
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3760
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