Lacewings Behaved Like Jurassic Butterflies Before Butterflies Evolved

Summary: Jurassic butterflies are scale-winged, wing-spotted kalligrammatid lacewings that consumed nectar and pollen 56 to 40 million years before butterflies.

fossilized Kalligrammatid lacewing compared with modern owl butterfly; Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC: Conrad Labandeira (right) and Jorge Santiago-Blay (left), No usage restrictions, via EurekAlert!

Jurassic butterflies are scale-winged, wing-spotted kalligrammatid lacewings that consumed nectar and pollen 56 to 40 million years before butterflies.

Jurassic butterflies are not ancient butterflies even though they fly, look and nectar like modern butterflies, according to investigations published Feb. 3, 2016, in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

The twelve co-researchers and co-writers base their findings upon examination of “new, well-preserved, kalligrammatid [lacewing] fossils” from Middle Jurassic and Early Cretaceous sites in northeastern China. They cluster the results of energy dispersive spectrometry, epifluorescence photography, polarized light photography, SEM imaging and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry into maps of evolutionary traits. They describe butterfly-like associations with seed plants, predation of nectar and pollen, looks of wing eyespots and scales and uses of tubular proboscides (piercing, sipping mouthparts).

Kalligrammatid lacewings elaborate butterfly-like appearances and butterfly-like behaviors 56 to 40 million years before the rise of butterflies.

Researchers in China, Singapore, Sweden and the United States find gymnosperm (naked seed) and kalligrammatid interactions similar to mid-Cretaceous angiosperm (ovary-enclosed seeds) and insect pollinator relationships.

The similarity generates the question regarding daytime schedules, eyespots, scales and tube-feeding: “Was this stereotypical assembly of butterfly features a one-time innovation uniquely associated with angiosperms?”

The research hints at a negative response because of convergent evolution, whereby dissimilar life forms develop similar behaviors and similar features to deal with similar challenges. It includes such extinct kalligrammatid lacewing genera as Abrigramma, Affingramma, Angarogramma, Apochrysogramma, Ithigramma, Kalligramma, Kalligrammina, Kalligrammula, Kallihemerobius, Limnogramma, Lithogramma, Meioneurites, Oregramma, Protokalligramma, Sinokalligramma, Sophogramma and Stelligramma.

Antlions, owlflies and silky-winged lacewings join spoon and thread-winged lacewings in the former’s kalligrammatid-like mouthparts and the latter wing similarities.

Paleontologists know now what was unproven before the study regarding Jurassic butterflies: kalligrammatids, with 160-millimeter (6.29-inch) wingspans, have butterfly-like mouthparts, ovipositors (egg-layers) and seed plant associations. The researchers list as carbonaceous, fine-grained sources of the study’s kalligrammatid fossils 125-million-year-old deposits in Liaoning, 155-million-year-old deposits in Kazakhstan and 165-million-year-old deposits in Inner Mongolia.

The study’s biologists, chemist, and geologists mention: “Lake deposits such as the Jiulongshan, Karabastau and Yixian formations typically preserve plants and insects that reveal surface details.”

Colors of eyespots, mouthparts and scales and internal structures of pollen only need cutting-edge, 21st-century technology for their “detailed morphological and ecological characterization” to be realized. High-tech procedures offer identification not only of body colors and parts but also of food canal-trapped “opaque plugs” and pollen.

Absent eyespots, melanin, scales and wing-spots and articulated chewing mouthparts prompt differentiating modern lacewings and their ancient Sophogrammatinae clade from modern butterflies and Jurassic butterflies clades.

Four extinct lacewing clades qualify for status as Jurassic butterflies since their modern butterfly-like proboscides “resembling the end of a thick straw” siphon nectar and pollen.

David Dilcher, discoverer from Indiana University in Bloomington of the world’s first flowering plant, Montsechia vidalii, reveals that pollen in and near the specimens is identifiable. He suggests regarding larval food and supplementary protein sources: “Likely hosts for Kalligrammatidae include [fern-like, palm-like, seed-bearing] cycads (Beania), bennettitaleans (Williamsonia, Weltrichia) and caytonialeans (Caytonia, Caytoniantus).”

It turns out that Jurassic gardens endure through cycads, with 280 million-year-old fossil records, even if their Jurassic butterflies do not.

artist's depiction of Kalligrammatid lacewing (Oregramma illecebrosa) consuming pollen drops on a bannettitalean plant (Williamsonia), an ancient plant living alongside the lacewing: Vichai Malikul, Smithsonian, No usage restrictions, via EurekAlert!

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

fossilized Kalligrammatid lacewing compared with modern owl butterfly; Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC: Conrad Labandeira (right) and Jorge Santiago-Blay (left), No usage restrictions, via EurekAlert! @ https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/909434; (EurekAlert! news release URL @ https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/813349#:~:text=Through%20taxonomic%2C%20anatomical%20and%20geochemical,elongated%2C%20tubular%20structures%20that%20modern); (former URL @ http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/108218.php?from=318201)

artist's depiction of Kalligrammatid lacewing (Oregramma illecebrosa) consuming pollen drops on a bannettitalean plant (Williamsonia), an ancient plant living alongside the lacewing: Vichai Malikul, Smithsonian, No usage restrictions, via EurekAlert! @ https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/909435; (EurekAlert! news release URL @ https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/813349#:~:text=Through%20taxonomic%2C%20anatomical%20and%20geochemical,elongated%2C%20tubular%20structures%20that%20modern); (former URL @ http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/108219.php?from=318201)

For further information:

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Available @ http://news.discovery.com/animals/insects/jurassic-butterfly-fossils-found-in-china-160204.htm

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Available @ http://motherboard.vice.com/read/crejurassic-butterfly-look-a-like-arrived-40-million-years-before-the-real-thing

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Available @ http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160203134942.htm

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Labandeira, Conrad C.; Yang, Qiang; Santiago-Blay, Jorge A.; Hotton, Carol L.; Monteiro, Antónia; Wang, Yong-Jie; Goreva, Yulia; Shih, ChungKun; Siljeström, Sandra; Rose, Tim R.; Dilcher, David L.; and Ren, Dong. 3 February 2016. “The Evolutionary Convergence of Mid-Mesozoic Lacewings and Cenozoic Butterflies.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 283 (1824): 20152893. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.2893
Available @ http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/283/1824/20152893

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Available @ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3432494/The-bizarre-Jurassic-butterfly-Researchers-prehistoric-creature-looks-acts-like-insect-predates-40-million-years.html

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