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. 2022 Apr 6;12(1):5820.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-09867-6.

Dominican amber net-winged beetles suggest stable paleoenvironment as a driver for conserved morphology in a paedomorphic lineage

Vinicius S Ferreira  1 , Alexey Solodovnikov  2 , Michael A Ivie  3 , Robin Kundrata  4
Affiliations

Dominican amber net-winged beetles suggest stable paleoenvironment as a driver for conserved morphology in a paedomorphic lineage

Vinicius S Ferreira et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Paedomorphosis is a heterochronic syndrome in which adult individuals display features of their immature forms. In beetles, this phenomenon occurs widely in the superfamily Elateroidea, including the net-winged beetles (Lycidae), and, due to the usual flightlessness of paedomorphic females, it is hypothesized to cause speciation rates higher than in non-paedomorphic lineages. However, some fossils of paedomorphic lycids do not support this with palaeobiological data. Discovery of new Lycidae fossils attributed to the West Indian extant paedomorphic genus Cessator Kazantsev in the Dominican amber also suggests morphological stasis within this genus in the Greater Antilles. We describe Cessator anachronicus Ferreira and Ivie, sp. nov. based on adult males, as well as the first ever recorded fossil net-winged beetle larva of the same genus. We propose that the relatively young age of the studied fossils combined with the stable conditions in the forest floor of the Greater Antilles through the last tens of million years could explain the exceptionally conserved morphology in the net-winged beetles affected by the paedomorphic syndrome.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Lycidae known or suspected to be affected by the paedomorphic syndrome. (A) Platerodrilus sp. (image: Marcus F.C. Ng). (B) Atelius expansicornis Walker, 1869, Sinharaja Research Station, Ratnapura, Sri Lanka (image: Amila Sumanapala). (C) Lyropaeus sp. (image: Marcus F.C. Ng). (D) Leptolycus (Baholycus) flavoapicalis Bocak, 2001, Los Montones, Villa Altagracia, Dominican Republic (image: Carlos de Soto Molinari).
Figure 2
Figure 2
(A, B) Holotype of Cessator anachronicus sp. nov. (AMNH no. DR-10-648). (A) Habitus, dorsal view. (B) Habitus, ventral view. (C–F) Paratypes of C. anachronicus sp. nov. Paratype (AMNH no. DR-10-647) figures (C, D). (C) Habitus, dorsolateral view. (D) Ventral view of head and base of antennae. Paratype (AMNH no. DR-10-816) figures (E, F). (E) Lateral view of anterior part of body. (F) Habitus, ventrolateral view. Scale bars 1 mm, except Fig. 1D, which is 0.5 mm.
Figure 3
Figure 3
First fossil of a Cessator larva, habitus. (A) Dorsal view and detail of head. (B) Lateral view and detail of head and pronotum. (C) Ventral view and detail of the last abdominal segments.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Cessator luquillonis Kazantsev, 2009 adult and larva from Puerto Rico. Male adult. (A) Habitus, dorsal view. (B) Head ventral view. Larva. (C) Dorsal view. (D) Lateral view. (E) Ventral view.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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