TY - JOUR

T1 - A fossil “Social Stomach”: Micro-CT imaging unearths first fossil record of ant proventriculi and comparative analysis with recent species

AU - Жарков, Дмитрий Михайлович

AU - Дубовиков, Дмитрий Александрович

PY - 2023/11/1

Y1 - 2023/11/1

N2 - Eusociality is an extreme form of social behavior found in some invertebrates, especially in ants, which allows them to thrive and dominate the environment through their cooperative and organized behavior. Their complex colony structure and social behavior is provided, among other things, by morphological adaptations, such as the unique structure and a huge variety of proventriculi relative to other insect groups. Here, we report the first discovery of proventriculus by X-ray microcomputed tomography (µCT) in the fossil ants †Oecophylla brischkei Mayr, 1868 and †Oecophylla crassinoda Wheeler, 1922. This is a remarkable fossil find, as it opens up new perspectives for research on phylogeny, the evolution of ant sociality and feeding behavior. We present a 3D model of the proventriculus in Oecophylla smaragdina (Fabricius, 1775) and a 3D model of the proventriculus in †Oe. brischkei and compare them. Fossil proventriculi are not fundamentally different in structure from the recent. Apparently, already in the late Eocene, the lifestyle and sociality of ants of the genus Oecophylla were similar to the one we are currently observing.

AB - Eusociality is an extreme form of social behavior found in some invertebrates, especially in ants, which allows them to thrive and dominate the environment through their cooperative and organized behavior. Their complex colony structure and social behavior is provided, among other things, by morphological adaptations, such as the unique structure and a huge variety of proventriculi relative to other insect groups. Here, we report the first discovery of proventriculus by X-ray microcomputed tomography (µCT) in the fossil ants †Oecophylla brischkei Mayr, 1868 and †Oecophylla crassinoda Wheeler, 1922. This is a remarkable fossil find, as it opens up new perspectives for research on phylogeny, the evolution of ant sociality and feeding behavior. We present a 3D model of the proventriculus in Oecophylla smaragdina (Fabricius, 1775) and a 3D model of the proventriculus in †Oe. brischkei and compare them. Fossil proventriculi are not fundamentally different in structure from the recent. Apparently, already in the late Eocene, the lifestyle and sociality of ants of the genus Oecophylla were similar to the one we are currently observing.

KW - 3D model

KW - Eocene Baltic amber

KW - Oecophylla

KW - ants

KW - microcomputed tomography

KW - proventriculus

KW - µCT

UR - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/GY7CGNS8GFXREKT7NZ7R?target=10.1002/jmor.21645

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/0185aa0d-de6a-336a-b3fe-05e458a650e3/

U2 - 10.1002/jmor.21645

DO - 10.1002/jmor.21645

M3 - Article

VL - 284

JO - Journal of Morphology

JF - Journal of Morphology

SN - 0362-2525

IS - 11

M1 - e21645

ER -