Paleontologists have discovered that insects Cretaceous actively using camouflage – they were covered with lumps of dirt, leaves and even exoskeletons of their victims. To date, arthropods have lost these skills. This was reported in the journal Science Advances, and briefly about the research tells Live Science.
In order to understand how widespread in the Mesozoic (early Cretaceous) was camouflage in arthropods, Bo Wang (Bo Wang) from the Nanjing Institute geology and paleontology walked scientific collections of China and Myanmar amber markets in search of insects trapped in the resin. A total of 300 thousand samples from Myanmar, as well as several tens of France and Lebanon, the researchers found 39 species with a “cargo»
In many cases, the insects back visible kind of “bush.” - Basket of foreign objects. The most common clay and leaves are found only on the back, said Wang: that is, it is not incidental impurities trapped in amber together with the animal, and deliberately taken the goods
One lacewing at death bore the exoskeletons senoedki. and psylla. Apparently, the first predator has consumed the interior of their victims, and then used them as “skins” for the purpose of camouflage hunting. In addition, scientists have discovered a camouflaged hischnetsov and ant lions. According to Wang, the insects have mastered the art of disguise another 130 million years ago, before the advent of flowering plants
In 2014, German and Chinese scientists have found a wasps unprecedented in the world to protect their nests strategy insects. In one of the outer tiers nest of ants they put corpses. The new species was named ossuarnyh wasps (Deuteragenia ossarium), in honor of the ossuaries (receptacles for the disposal of dead bone).
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