[Pollinator] Beetle in Amber Stirs Questions on Rise of Flowering Plants and their Pollinators

[Peter Bernhardt]

Dear Gary:

Thanks for sharing but the person who wrote it needs to review Geological
eras/periods and fossil evidence of flowering plants.

1)  Is it true that 105 Million years ago is mid-Mesozoic?  The Mesozoic
consists of the Permian, Jurassic and Cretaceous.  I forget how long each
lasts but wouldn't it be more likely that mid-Mesozoic is sometime in the
Jurassic?  Yes, I know that these periods didn't last equal amounts of time.

2) The fossil record shows that flowering plants are at least 120 million
years old.  The oldest are from China and Australia.  It's just that no one
has found a fossil flower in northern Spain yet. The oldest member of the
magnolia or liriodendron family is 100 million years old and comes from
Kansas.  Magnolias are beetle-pollinated in the modern day so who is to say
which plant was visited by this beetle?  In fact, some very interesting
flower fossils have been found within this time frame. See the following
link.

http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/science-archaeanthus-
ancient-ancestor-tulip-tree-01379.html

3) How can anyone say for sure that this beetle was carrying the pollen of
a cone-bearing or naked ovule tree (a gymnosperm) based on the pollen
grains?  The grains produced by  many basal flowering plants  (magnolias,
custard apples, Illicium), many monocots and the odder gymnosperms (gingko,
cycads) look remarkably similar.  They are shaped like footballs or jelly
beans with a germination slit (sulcus) running from pole to pole.  That's
what I see in the photo.  So let's be cautious.

4)  For those interested, this new beetle fossil was placed in the family,
Oedemeridae.  If you live in the eastern part of America wait for the
flowering of liver leaf (Hepatica acutiloba or H. nobilis).  Oedemerids in
the genus Asclera like to crawl into the flowers and eat the pollen and
chew up the tiny pistils.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2484189?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

5) The idea that flowering plants "replaced" gymnosperms as sources of
pollen and nectar for  earlier evolved lineages of beetles, flies, moths
and thrips is not new.  Please see the last chapter in my book (1999) and
I'll bet Dr. Lambadiera didn't give me any credit.

http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo3636149.html


On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 2:15 PM, Krupnick, Gary <KRUPNICK at si.edu> wrote:

> News
>
>
> Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
>
>
>
> http://newsdesk.si.edu/releases/mid-mesozoic-beetle-pollen-p
> reserved-amber-stir-new-questions-rise-flowering-plants-and-the
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__newsdesk.si.edu_releases_mid-2Dmesozoic-2Dbeetle-2Dpollen-2Dpreserved-2Damber-2Dstir-2Dnew-2Dquestions-2Drise-2Dflowering-2Dplants-2Dand-2Dthe&d=DwMFAg&c=Pk_HpaIpE_jAoEC9PLIWoQ&r=vELpXRm7sCfTzV7V_rIlRA&m=JQpcCynA17v4Ct7DPr1qIU6m8lGzty74RGCmQvENr4s&s=1JkB_S8OkWLAcknnoFnTQj2uqwPVqZ2bW3xTJwqJvNg&e=>
>
>
> *Mid-Mesozoic Beetle, Pollen Preserved in Amber Stirs New Questions on
> Rise of Flowering Plants and their Pollinators*
>
>
> *Smithsonian Scientist, Collaborators Point to Growing Evidence of Rich
> Insect Pollinator Relationships in Deep Time*
>
>
>
> Named for Charles Darwin, the only known specimen of a newly discovered
> beetle, *Darwinylus marcosi*, died in a sticky gob of tree sap some 105
> million years ago in what is now northern Spain. As it thrashed about
> before drowning, more than 100 clumped pollen grains were dislodged from
> its body and released into the resin. Five grains remained stuck to the
> beetle itself. Preserved with the beetle in the now-hard amber, the grains
> reveal that the beetle had been chewing a pollen meal with its jaw-like
> mouthparts just before it died.
>
> Scientists familiar with this era in earth’s history, the mid-Mesozoic,
> didn’t need to ponder long about what flowers produced the pollen. The
> answer is none. The amber dates to a time when flowering
> plants—angiosperms—were just beginning to appear and the earth was
> overwhelmingly dominated by diverse, non-flowering plant species, such as
> cycads, ginkgoaleans, bennettitaleans and conifers—the gymnosperms.
>
> Now, the discovery of *D. marcosi* in Spanish amber is proof of a new
> insect pollination mode that dates to the mid-Mesozoic: beetles with biting
> or “jaw-like mouthparts and a chewing feeding style,” says Conrad
> Labandeira
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__paleobiology.si.edu_staff_individuals_labandeira.cfm&d=DwMFAg&c=Pk_HpaIpE_jAoEC9PLIWoQ&r=vELpXRm7sCfTzV7V_rIlRA&m=JQpcCynA17v4Ct7DPr1qIU6m8lGzty74RGCmQvENr4s&s=AB5LzF6UH6nVddaLEmuqQJbLh3eliMwbJvFp096-OuE&e=>,
> a paleobiologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
> This amber fossil is the “… first, direct evidence of a fourth major
> gymnosperm–insect pollination mode during this time.” A study on this
> discovery—and its significance in the context of a growing body of evidence
> of gymnosperm–insect pollinator relationships and modes leading up to the
> rise of flowering plants—was published today, March 2, 2017, in the journal
> *Current* * Biology*
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__dx.doi.org_10.1016_j.cub.2017.02.009&d=DwMFAg&c=Pk_HpaIpE_jAoEC9PLIWoQ&r=vELpXRm7sCfTzV7V_rIlRA&m=JQpcCynA17v4Ct7DPr1qIU6m8lGzty74RGCmQvENr4s&s=c2nHywNThdhsv9drRXdKgX6u25ngvwk73TxxVLxmzL4&e=>.
> A display featuring key findings from this study and gymnosperm-insect
> pollinator relationships will be included in the museum’s new fossil hall
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__newsdesk.si.edu_releases_smithsonian-2Ds-2Dnational-2Dmuseum-2Dnatural-2Dhistory-2Dbuild-2Dnew-2Ddinosaur-2Dhall&d=DwMFAg&c=Pk_HpaIpE_jAoEC9PLIWoQ&r=vELpXRm7sCfTzV7V_rIlRA&m=JQpcCynA17v4Ct7DPr1qIU6m8lGzty74RGCmQvENr4s&s=W7Jr883NTUGslsZUFgfug4taFU7jQzu4DVLkOlzfvvE&e=>,
> scheduled to open in 2019.
>
>
>
> [more information at the link
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__newsdesk.si.edu_releases_mid-2Dmesozoic-2Dbeetle-2Dpollen-2Dpreserved-2Damber-2Dstir-2Dnew-2Dquestions-2Drise-2Dflowering-2Dplants-2Dand-2Dthe&d=DwMFAg&c=Pk_HpaIpE_jAoEC9PLIWoQ&r=vELpXRm7sCfTzV7V_rIlRA&m=JQpcCynA17v4Ct7DPr1qIU6m8lGzty74RGCmQvENr4s&s=1JkB_S8OkWLAcknnoFnTQj2uqwPVqZ2bW3xTJwqJvNg&e=>
> ]
>
> _______________________________________________
> Pollinator mailing list
> Pollinator at lists.sonic.net
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__lists.s
> onic.net_mailman_listinfo_pollinator&d=DwICAg&c=Pk_HpaIpE_jA
> oEC9PLIWoQ&r=vELpXRm7sCfTzV7V_rIlRA&m=JQpcCynA17v4Ct7DPr1qIU
> 6m8lGzty74RGCmQvENr4s&s=luHPSRaBLQAqvBVU9r9wkVivyZHimCrgANRslHFuBGs&e=
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20170302/0c19beb4/attachment-0001.html>