Body of a beetle in amber over 98 million years old found in Myanmar (photo)

Paleontologists have found a well-preserved short-winged beetle and its association with pollen accumulations in amber dating back to the Middle Cretaceous period. This discovery demonstrates that the beetle fed on pollen in the Cretaceous period and confirms that various beetles pollinated early flowering plants.

NV writes about it.

Beetles have been considered as possible first pollinators of angiosperms because of their long evolutionary history, and this discovery further supports this theory.

The newly identified beetle, Pelretes vivificus, lived about 98.2 million years ago in Myanmar. It was related to the short-winged flower beetles that are found in Australia today and feed on pollen.

Read also: A scary-looking spider turned out to be perhaps the most shy creature on Earth (photo)

This beetle, Pelretes vivificus, is associated with clusters of pollen grains, suggesting that it visited angiosperms in the Cretaceous period. Its anatomy, in particular its hairy abdomen, indicates adaptations related to pollination.

The amber piece studied preserved fossils of pollen-eating beetles. This provides insight into the diet of short-winged flower beetles in the Cretaceous period. The coprolites (fossilized beetle waste) consisted entirely of pollen of the same type that was found in the amber clusters around the beetle and attached to its body.

This shows that there was a real biological connection between the beetle and pollen in the Cretaceous period.

As a reminder, the remains of a spider that lived on Earth more than 300 million years ago were found in Germany.

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