Abstract
Full body impressions and resting traces of Hexapoda can be of extreme importance because they bring crucial information on behavior and locomotion of the trace makers, and help to better define trophic relationships with other organisms (predators or preys). However, these ichnofossils are much rarer than trackways, especially for winged insects. Here we describe a new full-body impression of a winged insect from the Middle Permian of Gonfaron (Var, France) whose preservation is exceptional. The elongate body with short prothorax and legs and long wings overlapping the body might suggests a plant mimicry as for some extant stick insects. These innovations are probably in relation with an increasing predation pressure by terrestrial vertebrates, whose trackways are abundant in the same layers. This discovery would possibly support the recent age estimates for the appearance of phasmatodean-like stick insects, nearly 30 million years older than the previous putative records. The new exquisite specimen is fossilized on a slab with weak ripple-marks, suggesting the action of microbial mats favoring the preservation of its delicate structures. Further prospections in sites with this type of preservation could enrich our understanding of early evolutionary history of insects.
Highlights
Full body impressions and resting traces of Hexapoda can be of extreme importance because they bring crucial information on behavior and locomotion of the trace makers, and help to better define trophic relationships with other organisms
full-body impressions (FBIs) of winged insects are extremely rare: only 10 specimens are recorded in the world, from the Carboniferous and Permian (Table 1 in Supplementary Information) and they mostly preserve the ventral side of the trackmaker only
To the taxonomic attribution of this FBI that can be only tentative by nature, the general shape of its narrow and elongate body strongly resembles that of a plant twig
Summary
Full body impressions and resting traces of Hexapoda can be of extreme importance because they bring crucial information on behavior and locomotion of the trace makers, and help to better define trophic relationships with other organisms (predators or preys). The elongate body with short prothorax and legs and long wings overlapping the body might suggests a plant mimicry as for some extant stick insects These innovations are probably in relation with an increasing predation pressure by terrestrial vertebrates, whose trackways are abundant in the same layers. To the taxonomic attribution of this FBI that can be only tentative by nature, the general shape of its narrow and elongate body strongly resembles that of a plant twig It would possibly constitutes the second oldest case of plant mimicry by insects, the first one being based on a leaf mimicry by an Orthoptera Tettigonioidea from the Roadian (Middle Permian) of Dôme du Barrot (France)[24]
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