Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Australian National Insect Collection, CSIRO, Canberra, Australia.
Elife. 2019 Apr 16;8:e44985. doi: 10.7554/eLife.44985.
Complex interspecies relationships are widespread among metazoans, but the evolutionary history of these lifestyles is poorly understood. We describe a fossil beetle in 99-million-year-old Burmese amber that we infer to have been a social impostor of the earliest-known ant colonies. gen. et sp. nov. belongs to the haeteriine clown beetles (Coleoptera: Histeridae), a major clade of 'myrmecophiles'-specialized nest intruders with dramatic anatomical, chemical and behavioral adaptations for colony infiltration. reveals that myrmecophiles evolved close to the emergence of ant eusociality, in colonies of stem-group ants that predominate Burmese amber, or with cryptic crown-group ants that remain largely unknown at this time. The clown beetle-ant relationship has been maintained ever since by the beetles host-switching to numerous modern ant genera, ultimately diversifying into one of the largest radiations of symbiotic animals. We infer that obligate behavioral symbioses can evolve relatively rapidly, and be sustained over deep time.
后生动物之间复杂的种间关系非常普遍，但这些生活方式的进化历史还不太清楚。我们描述了一种生活在 9900 万年前缅甸琥珀中的甲虫，我们推断它是最早已知的蚂蚁群体的社会冒名顶替者。属名和种名新属属于哈特里氏小丑甲虫（鞘翅目：隐翅虫科），这是一个主要的“拟蚁生物”分支，它们是专门的巢穴入侵者，具有戏剧性的解剖学、化学和行为适应能力，以渗透到蚁群中。这表明，拟蚁生物的进化与蚂蚁真社会性的出现密切相关，它们出现在缅甸琥珀中占主导地位的原始蚂蚁群体中，或者与此时仍知之甚少的隐秘冠群蚂蚁有关。从那时起，小丑甲虫与蚂蚁的关系一直保持着，因为甲虫不断地寄生到许多现代蚂蚁属中，最终演变成最大的共生动物辐射之一。我们推断，强制性的行为共生关系可以相对快速地进化，并在长时间内维持。
