Many insects and their relatives are renowned for sophisticated compound eyes,which are also preserved in the fossil record.Yet there are other types of eyes,notably the so-called stemmata of holometabolans,such as be...Many insects and their relatives are renowned for sophisticated compound eyes,which are also preserved in the fossil record.Yet there are other types of eyes,notably the so-called stemmata of holometabolans,such as beetles,bees,and butterflies.Stemmata are not as effective as compound eyes,except in some predatory larvae.Here we report three lacewing larvae with large forward-directed stemmata from Cretaceous Kachin amber,Myanmar.The stemmata are large relative to those of other fossil lacewing larvae,comparable to the simple eyes of modern larvae capable of image formation.The head is very wide in one larva,representing a new type of morphology as demonstrated by a quantitative comparison of the head and stylets of over 400 fossil and extant lacewing larvae.The arrangement of the exceptionally large stemmata of the larvae reported here provides stereoscopic vision.These new specimens demonstrate the convergent evolution of highly developed simple eyes in at least two additional lineages of lacewings,showcasing the enormous diversity of lacewing larvae in the Cretaceous.展开更多
基金supported by a Volkswagen Foundation Lichtenberg professorship,the German Research Foundation(DFG Ha 6300/6-1)LMUexcellent+1 种基金the Imaging Center of the Department of Biology,University of Greifswald and the German Research Foundation(DFG INST 292/119-1 FUGGDFG INST 292/120-1 FUGG)for funding imaging there.
文摘Many insects and their relatives are renowned for sophisticated compound eyes,which are also preserved in the fossil record.Yet there are other types of eyes,notably the so-called stemmata of holometabolans,such as beetles,bees,and butterflies.Stemmata are not as effective as compound eyes,except in some predatory larvae.Here we report three lacewing larvae with large forward-directed stemmata from Cretaceous Kachin amber,Myanmar.The stemmata are large relative to those of other fossil lacewing larvae,comparable to the simple eyes of modern larvae capable of image formation.The head is very wide in one larva,representing a new type of morphology as demonstrated by a quantitative comparison of the head and stylets of over 400 fossil and extant lacewing larvae.The arrangement of the exceptionally large stemmata of the larvae reported here provides stereoscopic vision.These new specimens demonstrate the convergent evolution of highly developed simple eyes in at least two additional lineages of lacewings,showcasing the enormous diversity of lacewing larvae in the Cretaceous.
