A 100 - million - year - old white Anglo-Saxon Protestant looks as though it was made by run up together portion of many different creature , just as was once think to be the case for theplatypus .
However , Aptenoperissus burmanicuswas a real tool , albeit the only known representative of its family . We have only a single specimen , enchant in amber , but it is so well preserved we sleep with quite a bit about its frame , although less about its descent .
“ When I first looked at this louse I had no approximation what it was , ” saidEmeritus Professor George Poinarof Oregon State University in astatement . “ You could see it ’s tough and robust , and could give a painful pang . We ultimately had to create a new house for it , because it just did n’t fit anywhere else . And when it died out , this created an evolutionary stagnant end for that mob . ”
The soleA. burmanicusfossil was found in the Hukawang Valley , north Myanmar , where rich deposits of Cretaceous gold have cater us with much of what we know about arthropod specie of the era 145 million to 65 million long time ago , including theoldest knownspecies of bee . When the specimen was strike , no one really knew what to make of it .
“ We had various investigator and reviewers , with dissimilar backgrounds , face at this fossil through their own window of experience , and many of them saw something dissimilar , ” Poinar say . In a situation Poinar compare to the parable of theblind human beings and the elephant , those used to working on grasshoppers discover the resemblance to their specialty in the hefty hind legs . Ant expert recognized the transmitting aerial , while the abdomen reminded everyone of a cockroach .
base in part on the face , Poinar and his confrere decided thatA. burmanicuswas a wingless wasp . InCretaceous Research , they describe the raw mintage , identifying it as so dissimilar from anything else sleep with that it call for its own family unit , fall within the Ceraphronoidea superfamily .
The specimen is a female , and is thought to have lived on the timber floor or the trunks of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree where it would have parasitized the pupae of other insects . The branch were in all likelihood used to jump on prey and to make speedy escapes from wherever it had burrowed in search of victim on which to lay its eggs . The authors assign the personnel casualty ofA. burmanicus ' wings to the fact that they would have gotten in the agency when crawl into cramp spaces . The want of the highly recognizable shank is more puzzling .
