The earliest fossil mosquito.
Curr Biol
; 33(23): 5240-5246.e2, 2023 12 04.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38052162
ABSTRACT
Female mosquitoes are among the most notorious blood-feeding insects, sometimes causing severe allergic responses or vectoring a variety of microbial pathogens.1,2 Hematophagy in insects is likely a feeding shift from plant fluids, with the piercing-sucking mouthparts serving as suitable exaptation for piercing vertebrates' skin. The origins of these habits are mired in an often-poor fossil record for many hematophagous lineages,3,4 particularly those of sufficient age, as to give insights into the paleoecological context in which blood feeding first appeared or even to arrive at gross estimates as to when such shifts have occurred. This is certainly the case for mosquitoes, a clade estimated molecularly to date back to the Jurassic.5 The known Mesozoic Culicidae are Late Cretaceous, assigned to the modern Anophelinae or to the extinct Burmaculicinae, sister to other Culicidae, all with mouthparts of a modern type. Here, we report the discovery, in Lower Cretaceous amber from Lebanon, of two conspecific male mosquitoes unexpectedly with piercing mouthparts, armed with denticulate sharp mandibles and laciniae. These male fossils were likely hematophagous. They represent a lineage that diverged earlier than Burmaculicinae, extending the definitive occurrence of the family into the Early Cretaceous and serving to narrow the ghost-lineage gap for mosquitoes.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Fossils
/
Culicidae
Limits:
Animals
Language:
En
Journal:
Curr Biol
Journal subject:
BIOLOGIA
Year:
2023
Document type:
Article