Alienopterus

Alienopterus
Temporal range: Cenomanian 99 Ma
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Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Family: †Alienopteridae
Genus: †Alienopterus
Bai et al, 2016
Species:
†A. brachyelytrus
Binomial name
†Alienopterus brachyelytrus
Bai et al, 2016
Other species

Alienopterus brachyelytrus is an extinct insect described from a 99 million year old fossil found in Burmese amber from the Hukawng Valley of Myanmar. It was the first known member of the order Alienoptera until 2018, when the second and third members of the order, Caputoraptor elegans, and Alienopterella stigmatica were described.[2][3] A. brachyelytrus has characters that are shared with cockroaches and mantids and is thought to represent either the sister taxon, or an ancestor to mantids.[4]

Alienopterus has shortened forewings and functional hindwings capable of flight that are attached to pads as in the Mantophasmatodea. The foreleg has a femoral brush which is a characteristic of Mantodea. The mouth points downward from the body axis and has biting mouthparts suggestive of a predator. The antenna is long and there are large compound eyes as well as three ocelli on the head (which is never found in the Blattodea).[4]

  1. ^ Poinar, George; Brown, Alex E (2017). "An exotic insect Aethiocarenus burmanicus gen. et sp. nov. (Aethiocarenodea ord. nov., Aethiocarenidae fam. nov.) from mid-Cretaceous Myanmar amber". Cretaceous Research. 72: 100–104. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2016.12.011.
  2. ^ Ming Bai; Rolf Georg Beutel; Weiwei Zhang; Shuo Wang; Marie Hörnig; Carsten Gröhn; Evgeny Yan; Xingke Yang; Benjamin Wipfler (2018). "A new Cretaceous insect with a unique cephalo-thoracic scissor device". Current Biology. 28 (3): 438–443.e1. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2017.12.031. PMID 29395923.
  3. ^ Kočárek, Petr (2018). "Alienopterella stigmatica gen. et sp. nov.: the second known species and specimen of Alienoptera extends knowledge about this Cretaceous order (Insecta: Polyneoptera)". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 17 (6): 1–10. doi:10.1080/14772019.2018.1440440. ISSN 1477-2019. S2CID 90147082.
  4. ^ a b Bai, Ming; Beutel, Rolf Georg; Klass, Klaus-Dieter; Zhang, Weiwei; Yang, Xingke; Wipfler, Benjamin (2016). "†Alienoptera — A new insect order in the roach–mantodean twilight zone". Gondwana Research. 39: 317–326. doi:10.1016/j.gr.2016.02.002.