| Title: | Reconstructing the ecology of a Cretaceous cockroach: destructive and high-resolution imaging of its micro sensory organs |
| Author(s): | Taniguchi R; Nishino H; Watanabe H; Yamamoto S; Iba Y; |
| Address: | "Department of Natural History Sciences, Graduate School of Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0810, Japan. ryoxtaniguchi@eis.hokudai.ac.jp. Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0812, Japan. Department of Earth System Science, Fukuoka University, Fukuoka, 814-0180, Japan. Hokkaido University Museum, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0810, Japan. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0810, Japan" |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s00114-021-01755-9 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1432-1904 (Electronic) 0028-1042 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Animals highly depend on their sensory organs to detect information about their surrounding environment. Among animal sensory organs, those of insects have a notable ability to detect information despite their small size, which might be, therefore, one of the reasons for the evolutionary success of insects. However, insect sensory organs are seldom fossilized in sediments due to their small size and fragility. A potential solution for this problem is the study of exceptionally well-preserved fossil material from amber. Unfortunately, the resolution of existing non-destructive analysis is insufficient to observe details of these micro sensory organs even with amber preservation. Here, we focus on the analysis of the micro sensory organs of an extinct male cockroach (Huablattula hui Qiu et al., 2019) in Cretaceous amber by combining destructive and non-destructive methods. Compared to extant species inhabiting dark environments, H. hui has relatively large compound eyes, and all the antennal sensilla for detecting multimodal information observed here are fewer or smaller. The characteristics of these sensory organs support the diurnality of the bright habitats of H. hui in contrast to many extant cockroaches. Like extant male mantises, grooved basiconic type sensilla exist abundantly on the antenna of the fossilized specimen. The abundance of grooved basiconic sensilla in mantid males results from using sex pheromones, and therefore, H. hui may have likewise used mantis-like intersexual communication. These lines of evidence suggest that the ecology and behavior of Cretaceous cockroaches were more diverse than those of related extant species" |
| Keywords: | Amber Animals *Cockroaches Fossils Male *Mantodea Sensilla Destructive analysis Micro sensory organs Paleobiology; |
| Notes: | "MedlineTaniguchi, Ryo Nishino, Hiroshi Watanabe, Hidehiro Yamamoto, Shuhei Iba, Yasuhiro eng 2020-2-6/Kuribayashi Scholarship and Academic Foundation/ JP20J00159/Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/ 19H02010/Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/ 2019-4/Canon Foundation/ Germany 2021/09/29 Naturwissenschaften. 2021 Sep 28; 108(5):45. doi: 10.1007/s00114-021-01755-9" |
