New York – An old wasp could have been tight among dinosaurs, with a body like a trap for the Venus fly to grab and snatch their prey, scientists reported Wednesday.
The abdomen of the parasitic wasp has a set of flap and thin bristles palettes, which resembles “a small binding trap at the end in the end,” said the co -author of the Lars Vilhelmsen study of the Natural History Museum of Denmark.
Scientists discovered more than a dozen female wasps preserved in Ambar of 99 million years in the Kachin region in northern Myanmar. Wasp fins and teeth -shaped hairs resemble the structure of the Venus Flytrap carnivorous plant, which looms to digest unsununted insects. But the WASP outfit design caused scientists to think that their trap was designed to cushion, not crush.
On the other hand, the researchers suggested that the structure similar to Flytrap was used to hold a twisted insect while the wasp put an egg, depositing a baby wasp to feed and drain their new guest.
It is a play book adapted by many parasitic wasps, including modern cuckoo and betylidides wasps, to exploit insects. But no known wasp or any other insect does it with strange flaps like this.
“I have seen many strange insects, but this has to be one of the most peculiar I’ve seen in a long time,” said entomologist Lynn Kimsey at the University of California, Davis, who was not involved in the investigation.
