Gymnopollisthrips - Bee Precursor From 100 Million Years Ago Found In Amber
Sunday, June 3, 2012 - 05:00
in Biology & Nature
What evolutionary reason would tiny insects 100 million years ago have for collecting and transporting Gingko pollen? They had highly specialized hairs with a ringed structure to increase their ability to collect pollen grains. Their ringed hairs cannot have grown due to an evolutionary selection benefiting the trees so ancient thysanopterans, so-called thrips (a group of minute insects of less than 2 mm in length) must have fed their larvae with pollen. This suggests that this species formed colonies with larvae living in the ovules of some kind of gingko for shelter and protection, and female insects transporting pollen from the male Gingko cones to the female ovules to feed the larvae and at the same time pollinate the trees. read more