Ticks parasitised feathered dinosaurs as revealed by Cretaceous amber assemblages

Abstract

Ticks are currently among the most prevalent blood-feeding ectoparasites, but their feeding habits and hosts in deep time have long remained speculative. Here, we report direct and indirect evidence in 99 million-year-old Cretaceous amber showing that hard ticks and ticks of the extinct new family Deinocrotonidae fed on blood from feathered dinosaurs, non-avialan or avialan excluding crown-group birds. A †Cornupalpatum burmanicum hard tick is entangled in a pennaceous feather. Two deinocrotonids described as †Deinocroton draculi gen. et sp. nov. have specialised setae from dermestid beetle larvae (hastisetae) attached to their bodies, likely indicating cohabitation in a feathered dinosaur nest. A third conspecific specimen is blood-engorged, its anatomical features suggesting that deinocrotonids fed rapidly to engorgement and had multiple gonotrophic cycles. These findings provide insight into early tick evolution and ecology, and shed light on poorly known arthropod–vertebrate interactions and potential disease transmission during the Mesozoic.

Ornamental feathers in Cretaceous Burmese amber: resolving the enigma of rachis-dominated feather structure

“…et al, 2008). Isolated Cretaceous feathers in amber from Canada, France, Japan, Lebanon, Myanmar, Spain and the USA (Schlee and Glöckner 1978;Grimaldi and Case 1995;Grimaldi et al 2002;Delclòs et al 2007;Perrichot et al 2008;McKellar et al 2011;Peñalver et al 2017), and skeletally associated feathers in amber (Xing et al 2016a(Xing et al , b, 2017 have recently become a valuable supplement to the compression fossil record of feathers. Amber preserves three-dimensional specimens with microstructure and pigmentation (Thomas et al 2014) and has the potential to clarify problematic structures and reveal fine morphological details unlikely to preserve in compression fossils.…”

Ticks and Tick-Borne Diseases in Cuba, Half a Century of Scientific Research

“…Ticks (Acari: Ixodida) are grouped into three families, Argasidae, Ixodidae and Nuttalliellidae, 17 genera, and more than 930 species and species complex [ 29 , 30 ]. Recently, an extinct tick family (Deinocrotonidae) that fed on dinosaurs was described [ 31 ]. Tick classification is based on the description of morphological and genetic traits [ 32 ].…”

Biological Inclusions in Amber from the Paleogene Chickaloon Formation of Alaska

“…The oldest putative dermestid is in Jurassic shale (Deng et al, 2017), with definitive larvae and adults in Early Cretaceous amber from Lebanon (Kirejtshuk et al, 2009), and the oldest Attageninae from the mid-Cretaceous of Myanmar (Cai et al, 2017) and Late Cretaceous of New Jersey (Peris and Hava, 2016). Hastisetae of megatomine dermestids are preserved in Upper Albian-aged amber from Spain, snagged in the legs and body of ticks (Penalver et al, 2017). The ticks most likely acquired the hastisetae in the arboreal nest of a vertebrate host (Penalver et al, 2017).…”

“…Hastisetae of megatomine dermestids are preserved in Upper Albian-aged amber from Spain, snagged in the legs and body of ticks (Penalver et al, 2017). The ticks most likely acquired the hastisetae in the arboreal nest of a vertebrate host (Penalver et al, 2017). Diverse modern genera of dermestids occur in Eocene Baltic amber (e.g., Hava et al, 2008) and Mio¬ cene Dominican amber.…”