Extreme adaptations for probable visual courtship behaviour in a Cretaceous dancing damselfly.
Courtship behaviours, frequent among modern insects, have left extremely rare fossil traces. None are known previously for fossil odonatans. Fossil traces of such behaviours are better known among the vertebrates, e.g. the hypertelic antlers of the Pleistocene giant deer Megaloceros giganteus. Here we describe spectacular extremely expanded, pod-like tibiae in males of a platycnemidid damselfly from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber. Such structures in modern damselflies, help to fend off other suitors as well as attract mating females, increasing the chances of successful mating. Modern Platycnemidinae and Chlorocyphidae convergently acquired similar but less developed structures. The new findings provide suggestive evidence of damselfly courtship behaviour as far back as the mid-Cretaceous. These data show an unexpected morphological disparity in dancing damselfly leg structure, and shed new light on mechanisms of sexual selection involving intra- and intersex reproductive competition during the Cretaceous.
State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, China.|Department of Earth Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China.
Daran
D
Zheng
Institut de Systématique, Évolution, Biodiversité, ISYEB-UMR 7205-CNRS, MNHN, UPMC, EPHE, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Sorbonne Universités, 57 rue Cuvier, CP 50, Entomologie, F-75005, Paris, France.
André
A
Nel
State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, China.|Department of Earth Sciences, The Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK.
Edmund A
EA
Jarzembowski
Department of Earth Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China.
Su-Chin
SC
Chang
State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, China.
Haichun
H
Zhang
Nanjiao Bieshu 394, Shanghai, China.
Fangyuan
F
Xia
Nanjiao Bieshu 394, Shanghai, China.
Haoying
H
Liu
State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, China.|Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1, Beichen West Road, Beijing 100101, China.
Bo
B
Wang
D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D003380:Courtship; D007313:Insecta / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology*