The ancient parasitic “Venus Flight Rap” WASP is preserved in amber.

Destined to the mid-Kinashi period, the extinct lineage of parasite hornets, preserved in amber, may have used Venus flight-lap-like abdomen to capture and immobilize prey.

A study published in BMC Biology shows that the specimen of Sirenovetiluscharibdis, named after a sea monster in Greek mythology, was swallowed and absorbed by 3 times a day.

The morphology of S. charybdis indicates that hornets are parasites. The larvae live as parasites and ultimately kill their host. Modern parasitic wasps of the Superfamily Chrysidoidea include the Cuckoo hornet and the Vetirido hornet. But S. The charybdis specimen has a unique venous pattern in the hind wing, suggesting that the species belongs within its own family, Sirenovetiridae.

Taiping Gao, Lars Vilhelmsen, and colleagues at Capital Normal University, China, and the Digital History Museum of Denmark used microCT scans to analyze 16 female S. Charybdis specimens stored in Amber 98.79 million years ago. These specimens were collected from the Kachin region of northern Myanmar.

They discovered that this species is likely to be Koinobion. This is a parasitic wasp that allows its host to continue growing while feeding it. The WASP specimen has an abdominal device made up of three flaps, whose decay forms a paddle-shaped structure with 12 hair-like hairs that are visually reminiscent of the Venus flight lap plant.

The authors are S. It points out that unlike the abdominal part of known insects, the charybdis abdominal device may have served as a mechanism to temporarily suppress the host during egg sales.

Since it is likely that the wasps were unable to pursue their prey over long distances, we speculate that the potential host was waiting on an open device to activate the capture response.

The authors have an elaborate grasping device, and have a S. We believe that charybdis has enabled them to target highly mobile prey such as small, winged or jumping insects.

Conserved specimens suggest that chrysidoid acid exhibited a wider range of parasite strategies than modern counterparts.