Department of Entomology, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, People's Republic of China.
Institute of Ecological and Environmental Protection, Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shanghai 201403, People's Republic of China.
Proc Biol Sci. 2020 Jun 10;287(1928):20200629. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2020.0629. Epub 2020 Jun 3.
Mantidflies (Mantispidae) are an unusual and charismatic group of predatory lacewings (Neuroptera), whereby the adults represent a remarkable case of morphological and functional convergence with praying mantises (Mantodea). The evolutionary history of mantidflies remains largely unknown due to a scarcity of fossils. Here, we report the discovery of a highly diverse palaeofauna of mantidflies from the mid-Cretaceous (lowermost Cenomanian) of Myanmar. The raptorial forelegs of these mantidflies possess highly divergent morphological modifications, some of which are unknown among modern mantidflies, e.g. the presence of forked basal profemoral spines or even the complete loss of foreleg spine-like structures. A phylogenetic analysis of Mantispidae reveals a pattern of raptorial foreleg evolution across the family. The high species diversity and disparate foreleg characters might have been driven by diverse niches of predator-prey interplay in the complex tropical forest ecosystem of the mid-Cretaceous.
螳䗛（Mantispidae）是一类形态奇特且具有魅力的捕食性草蛉（Neuroptera），其成虫与螳螂（Mantodea）在形态和功能上具有显著的趋同进化现象。由于化石记录的匮乏，螳䗛的进化历史在很大程度上仍是未知的。在这里，我们报道了来自缅甸中白垩世（下坎潘阶）的多样化螳䗛古生物群的发现。这些螳䗛的捕食性前腿具有高度分化的形态特征，其中一些在现代螳䗛中是未知的，例如分叉的基前股刺或甚至完全失去前腿刺状结构。对螳䗛科的系统发育分析揭示了家族内部捕食性前腿进化的模式。这种高度的物种多样性和不同的前腿特征可能是由中生代中期复杂的热带雨林生态系统中捕食者-猎物相互作用的不同生态位驱动的。
