About 180 million years ago!Chinese fossils reveal the oldest insect "wedding flying" behavior

In 1974, the villagers in Xiyang Village, Lintong District, Shaanxi Province accidentally discovered the pottery figurines. Since then, the prelude to the discovery of the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Qin Shihuang ...

In April to May 2021, in the Xiban Pen Pen Pan of Hezhou City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the Shawa family insect fossil was discovered for the first time by scientists at the Nanjing Institute of Geological Paraphoria of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The scientific examination team inspects the steep hillside

Photo source: Nanjing Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

The first discovery of insect fossils in Shabuchia is of great significance. It not only reveals the oldest insect marriage flight, but also provides important evidence for us to understand the characteristics and evolution of the middle generation of lake ecosystems, as well as the connection between water-land ecosystems.

PART.1

The "collective wedding" of creatures

The Insect Fossils of the Shaka family was found in the Jurassic Stone Stagenca Group under the West Basin of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Scientists named it Jurassephemera ZHANGI ZHANGI ZHANG ET al., 2022). There are only 4 species.

There are certain differences between the new species found in Guangxi and the other three species, which are mainly reflected in the branches of the newly -produced front -winged MA veins closer to the base, and the Zhangrassic sandy salamander of the Zhang family also has a large number of preservation, complete insect body, and clear front wings. Features.

The fossils discovered this time have preserved the most detailed morphological classification evolutionary information of the extinction group of Shabuke.

The number of cricket clusters consisting of Zhangrai Jurassicae unearthed as many as hundreds of individuals, and the wings of insect fossils are kept intact, and their bodies are different. "Terracotta Warriors" are very similar, so it is not an exaggeration to say that they are "terracotta warriors" in the field of insect fossils.

In addition to being completely preserved, the significance of the discovery of the insect fossils is not the same. It also shows everyone a collective wedding that spans hundreds of millions of years.

If nature is a camera, then the insect fossil is a "negative" left by nature to humans. This fossil "negative" visually shows about 180 million years ago, a lake in southern my country, The vivid scene of cluster reproduction after the edge insect feathers, this biological phenomenon also has a poetic term- "wedding flying".

The insects in the fossil "negatives" are bustling, different, and the first and tails. Obviously, the spectacular scene of quiet death after completion of reproduction and reproduction is obviously discovered by scientists until 180 million years later.

The process of social insects can reproduce offspring, and then form a new group, which is endless, forming a gorgeous and colorful nature.

Marriage flight is actually very common in daily life. On the occasion of spring and summer, groups of flying insects gathered in the area to fly, but they are actually "wedding flying."

"Wedding Flying" exists in the current land ecosystem. The earliest fossil records of this phenomenon are reported in the Baiyechi fossils, such as the Rehe Biological Group.

By "rinse" of this "negative", scientists have become clearer and clearer. In combination with the geological age of this output, scientists said that the cluster fossils of the Xiban Basin represent the oldest known insect marriage flight.

PART.2

The oldest insect resource pulse phenomenon

The fossil of the cluster of the Xiwan Basin is the oldest insect marriage flight, and it is also the oldest phenomenon of insect resource pulse.

So what is insect resource pulse phenomenon?

In nature, resource fluctuations sometimes occur in the form of pulses, showing the characteristics of low frequency, high strength, and short duration. Resource pulse refers to an incident in a short period of time.

Resource pulse incidents are an important mechanism for energy, nutrition and biomass migration between different ecological domains. Although this phenomenon exists in the modern ecosystem, we know very little about the similar records of the earth hundreds of millions of years ago.

Therefore, the pupae fossils of the Xiban Basin can help us understand the ecosystem of hundreds of millions of years ago.

The resource pulse effect revealed by the fossils of the pupa cluster of the Xiwan Basin can be reflected in two aspects: as food and as fertilizers.

First look at the first aspect -as food. Aquatic insect plays an important role in the food network. It is a breakdown of aquatic plants and consumers, and at the same time becomes a food for fish and other predators.

Coincidentally, the living habits of insects determine the life course of such cymbal insects born inside the water and the end of the old water. When the "holding group" insects from the water, spreading from the water to the land and looking for a spouse, they will become an important part of the land food network.

This resource pulse effect is confirmed in a large number of multi -door fossils found in the stagnation of the stone ladder group (vertebrate -free, shark egg sheaths, and plants, which are collectively referred to as West Bay Biological Group.) It was confirmed.

In addition to providing food for predators in the biological group, the sudden emergence of the cluster also produces a "fertilizer effect" to the plant community near the lake and streams. It is fertilizers that these insect clusters can be transformed into ecosystems after the death and decomposition of insect clusters.

This insect resource pulse effect may lead to a huge change in the flux of the environmental ecosystem of the waterfront habitat, which will affect the basic ecology and biochemical chemical cycle.The "Terracotta Warriors and Horses" found in the Xiban Biological Group represent the insect resource pulse incident formed after the oldest insect feathers.It is from the aquatic to the land ecosystem.

A small cricket, dying diluted, but came to everyone through the natural power through hundreds of millions of years, and told us that the tiny body can also create huge value in our own way.Researchers' inquiry in related aspects is a dialogue through time and space, and the ultimate impact will be contemporary and future development.

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