New indications for the life habits of long-legged aphidlion-like larvae in about 100-million-year-old amber

Abstract

Larvae of lacewings (Neuroptera) are known to be fierce predators today. Most characteristic are their prominent piercing-sucking stylets, which are used for venom injection and sucking out the fluids of the prey. Among lacewing larvae, aphidlions (larvae of the groups Chrysopidae and Hemerobiidae, green and brown lacewings) are today highly specialised to feed on aphids and evolved strategies to not be detected and attacked by, e.g., aphid-protecting ants. Fossil relatives of modern aphidlions seem to have also employed other strategies. For the species Pedanoptera arachnophila from about 100-million-year-old Kachin amber, Myanmar, an interaction of its larvae with spiders has been assumed. We present here new specimens resembling these larvae, including one piece of Cretaceous Kachin amber with a syn-inclusion of an aphidlion-like larva and an immature planthopper, indicating planthoppers as potential prey of the group about 100 million years ago. The morphology of the lacewing larva, with a trapezoid head capsule (in dorsal view), simple, toothless stylets, very elongate legs, and a spindle-shaped trunk, indicates that it is conspecific or at least closely related to P. arachnophila. We reconstruct the possible ontogenetic sequence of Pedanoptera arachnophila and discuss its ecology.