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January: bioluminescent beetle | News and features | University of Bristol bristol.ac.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bristol.ac.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Most bioluminescent insects are soft-bodied and quite small, and so have a scant fossil record. However, this new fossil, found in amber from northern Myanmar, is exceptionally well-preserved; even the light organ on its abdomen is intact, said Dr. Chenyang Cai, a researcher at the University of Bristol and associate professor at NIGPAS. The presence of a light-producing organ on the abdomen of the male provides direct evidence that that adults of Cretophengodes were capable of producing light some 100 million years ago. The newly discovered fossil, preserved with life-like fidelity in amber, represents an extinct relative of the fireflies and the living families Rhagophthalmidae and Phengodidae, says Yan-Da Li from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology (NIGP) and Peking University in China. ....
Fleas are not a separate insect order, as previously thought, and are a lineage of scorpionflies, which evolved when they started feeding on the blood of vertebrates sometime between 290 and 165 million years ago (Permian to Jurassic periods), according to a new genetic analysis of fleas and related insects. An ancient flea species called Atopopsyllus cionus may carry evidence of an ancestral strain of the bubonic plague ( Yersinia pestis). Image credit: George Poinar Jr. Fleas are medically important blood-feeding insects responsible for spreading pathogens such as plague, typhus, and myxomatosis. They exhibit one of the most bizarre bodyplans and modes of life among insects. They have a wingless body, siphonate mouthparts, very reduced eyes, and hind legs adapted for jumping. ....
E-Mail A study of more than 1,400 protein-coding genes of fleas has resolved one of the longest standing mysteries in the evolution of insects, reordering their placement in the tree of life and pinpointing who their closest relatives are. The University of Bristol study, published in the journal Palaeoentomology, drew on the largest insect molecular dataset available. The dataset was analysed using new statistical methods, including more sophisticated algorithms, to test all historically proposed hypotheses about the placement of fleas on the insect tree of life and search for new potential relationships. The findings overturn previously held theories about fleas, the unusual anatomy of which has meant that they eluded classification in evolutionary terms. According to the authors of the study, contrary to popular belief, fleas are technically scorpionflies, which evolved when they started feeding on the blood of vertebrates sometime between the Permian and Ju ....
Genomic study of fleas finds them to be related to scorpionflies Shutterstock Press release issued: 21 December 2020 A study of more than 1,400 protein-coding genes of fleas has resolved one of the longest standing mysteries in the evolution of insects, reordering their placement in the tree of life and pinpointing who their closest relatives are. The University of Bristol study, published in the journal Palaeoentomology, drew on the largest insect molecular dataset available. The dataset was analysed using new statistical methods, including more sophisticated algorithms, to test all historically proposed hypotheses about the placement of fleas on the insect tree of life and search for new potential relationships. ....