Unparalleled details of soft tissues in a Cretaceous ant

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  • Yuhui Zhuang
  • Wenjing Xu
  • KU, thw266
  • Huijuan Mai
  • Xiaoqin Li
  • Hong He
  • Hao Ran
  • Yu Liu

For social insects such as ants, the internal organs are likely important in understanding their eusocial behavior and evolution. Such organs, however, are rarely preserved on fossils. In each of the few cases reporting exceptionally fossilized soft tissues in arthropods, the nervous, muscular and cardiovascular systems have been described individually, but never in combination. Here, we report a female specimen (gyne) of the extinct ant group—Zigrasimecia—included in a Cretaceous amber piece from Kachin, Myanmar, with an almost complete system formed by various internal organs. These include the brain, the main exocrine system, part of the digestive tract, and several muscle clusters. This research expands our knowledge of internal anatomy in stem group ants. As the gyne bears a morphologically unique labrum, our specimen’s internal and external features support the notion that the early ant may have special ecological habits during the Cretaceous period.

Original languageEnglish
Article number146
JournalBMC Ecology and Evolution
Volume22
Issue number1
Number of pages10
ISSN2730-7182
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

    Research areas

  • Amber, Cretaceous, Fossil, Micro-CT, Soft-tissue preservation, Zigrasimecia

ID: 330382295