Earliest behavioral mimicry and possible food begging in a Mesozoic alienopterid pollinator

Abstract

Morphological insect-insect mimicry is known from few Cretaceous cockroaches and a beetle. Formicamendax vrsanskyi gen. et sp. n. (Blattaria, Alienopteridae) shows myrmecomorph features such as an elongated, smooth and black body, simple fenestrated hindwing, legs lacking protective spines. Elbowed or Bgeniculate Bantenna is a typical character of advanced ants and weevils used for different forms of communication. Together with reduced mouthparts and specialized palps still preserved grasping food, they evidence specialized behavioral mimicry. The attached symmetric angiosperm pollen on hindleg can provide rare evidence of insect-flower relations.

Specialized cockroach pollination in the rare and endangered plant Vincetoxicum hainanense in China

“…However, these features overlap to some extent with nocturnal beetle pollination, though beetle‐pollinated flowers in Apocynaceae vary enormously in their phenotypes (Ollerton et al, 2017, 2019). Recent discoveries from Myanmar amber suggest that attraction and reward of cockroaches by gymnosperms and angiosperms may be an ancient pollination system that dates to at least the Cretaceous period (Hinkelman, 2020; Hinkelman and Vršanská, 2020). Further fossil material and extant cases of cockroach pollination need to be found and described to draw more general conclusions about the origins of this pollination system and similarities of floral phenotype in different plant groups.…”

Mimicry in Cretaceous Bugs

“…The earliest occurrence of Batesian mimicry has been inferred in alienopterid cockroaches from the Early Cretaceous Crato Formation in Brazil; this group of cockroaches also occurs in Burmese amber (Bai et al, 2016;Hinkelman, 2020;Vr sanský et al, 2018). Other cases of defensive mimicry in Burmese amber include a wasp-mimicking zhangsolvid fly (Grimaldi, 2016) and coleopterans possibly mimicking noxious net-winged beetles (Lycidae) (Bocá k et al, 2019;Poinar and Fanti, 2016).…”

“…The earliest putative case of aggressive mimicry in vertebrates has been recognized in a Late Jurassic piranha-like pycnodontiform fish that likely used its close resemblance of harmless species to approach prey unnoticed (Kö lbl-Ebert et al, 2018). Cases of defensive mimicry in Mesozoic arthropods are rare (Hinkelman, 2020;Vr sanský et al, 2018) and no cases of aggressive mimicry have so far been demonstrated in fossil invertebrates Petr, 1996, 1997).…”