Whipspiders (Arachnida: Amblypygi) in amber from the Early Eocene and mid-Cretaceous, including maternal care
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17161/np.v0i9.4765Keywords:
Taxonomy, Chelicerata, Arachnida, Amblypygi, Whipspider, systematics, amber, fossil, maternal careAbstract
Two new genera and species of fossil whipspiders (Chelicerata: Arachnida: Amblypygi) are described from Tertiary and Cretaceous ambers of southern Asia. Paracharonopsis cambayensis Engel & Grimaldi, new genus and species, preserved in Cambay amber of Ypresian age from western India is the first Tertiary and Asian fossil of the Paleoamblypygi, a highly relict taxon that includes the Late Carboniferous genus Graeophonus Scudder and the living West African species Paracharon caecus Hansen. Paracharonopsis cambayensis is one of the few examples in Cambay amber of a biotic connection to Africa; most taxa show widespread or Laurasian distributions. Kronocharon prendinii Engel & Grimaldi, new genus and species, is the first Cretaceous amber whipspider and putatively a sister group to the Phrynoidea (= Apulvillata). The holotype female of K. prendinii is preserved with the remains of three nymphs near her, documenting the Early Cretaceous presence of the extended maternal care so distinctive for the order, and a behavioral repertoire widespread among arachnids.References
Benton, T.G. 1991. Reproduction and parental care in the scorpion, Euscorpius flavicaudis. Behaviour 117(1–2): 20–28.
Chatterjee, S., & C. Scotese. 2010. The wandering Indian plate and its changing biogeography during the Late Cretaceous-Early Tertiary period. In: Bandyopadhyay, S. (Ed.), New Aspects of Mesozoic Biodiversity: 105–126. Springer Verlag; Berlin, Germany; xiv+134 pp.
Chatterjee, S., A. Goswami, & C.R. Scotese. 2013. The longest voyage: Tectonic, magmatic, and paleoclimatic evolution of the Indian plate during its northward flight from Gondwana to Asia. Gondwana Research 23(1): 238–267.
Chaboo, C.S., M.S. Engel, M.L. Chamorro-Lacayo. 2009. Maternally inherited architecture in Tertiary leaf beetles: Paleoichnology of cryptocephaline fecal cases in Dominican and Baltic amber. Naturwissenschaften 96(9): 1121–1126.
Del-Claro, K., & E. Tizo-Pederso. 2009. Ecological and evolutionary pathways of social behavior in pseudoscorpions (Arachnida: Pseudoscorpiones). Acta Ethologica 12(1): 13–22.
Dunlop, J.A., & V. Barov. 2005. A new fossil whip spider (Arachnida: Amblypygi) from the Crato Formation of Brazil. Revista Ibérica de Aracnología 12: 53–62.
Dunlop, J.A., & D.M. Martill. 2001. The first whipspider (Arachnida: Amblypygi) and three new whipscorpions (Arachnida: Thelyphonida) from the Lower Cretaceous Crato Formation of Brazil. Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 92(3): 325–334.
Dunlop, J.A., G.R.S. Zhou, & S.J. Braddy. 2007. The affinities of the Carboniferous whip spider Graeophonus anglicus Pocock, 1911 (Arachnida: Amblypygi). Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 98(2): 165–178.
Engel, M.S. 2009. Gregarious behaviour in Cretaceous earwig nymphs (Insecta, Dermaptera) from southwestern France. Geodiversitas 31(1): 129–135.
Engel, M.S., D.A. Grimaldi, P.C. Nascimbene, & H. Singh. 2011a. The termites of Early Eocene Cambay amber, the earliest record of Termitidae (Isoptera). ZooKeys 148: 105–123.
Engel, M.S., D.A. Grimaldi, H. Singh, & P.C. Nascimbene. 2011b. Webspinners in Early Eocene amber from western India (Insecta, Embiodea). ZooKeys 148: 197–208.
Engel, M.S., J. Ortega-Blanco, P.C. Nascimbene, & H. Singh. 2013. The bees of Early Eocene Cambay amber (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Journal of Melittology 25: 1–12.
Gourret, P. 1887. Recherches sur les arachnides tertiaires d’Aix en Provence. Recueil Zoologique Suisse 4: 431–496.
Grimaldi, D., & H. Singh. 2012. The extinct genus Pareuthychaeta in Eocene ambers (Diptera: Schizophora: Ephydroidea). Canadian Entomologist 144(1): 17–28.
Grimaldi, D.A., M.S. Engel, & P.C. Nascimbene. 2002. Fossiliferous Cretaceous amber from Myanmar (Burma): Its rediscovery, biotic diversity, and paleontological significance. American Museum Novitates 3361: 1–72.
Grimaldi, D.A., M.S. Engel, & H. Singh. 2013a. Bugs in the biogeography: Leptosaldinae (Heteroptera: Leptopodidae) in amber from the Miocene of Hispaniola and Eocene of India. Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society 86(3): 226–243.
Grimaldi, D.A., M.S. Engel, P.C. Nascimbene, & H. Singh. 2013b. Coniopterygidae (Neuroptera: Aleuropteryginae) in amber from the Eocene of India and the Miocene of Hispaniola. American Museum Novitates 3770: 1–20.
Hansen, H.J. 1921. Studies on Arthropoda I. Gyldendalske Boghandel; Copenhagen, Denmark; 80 pp., +4 pls.
Harvey, M.S. 2003. Catalogue of the Smaller Arachnid Orders of the World: Amblypygi, Uropygi, Schizomida, Palpigradi, Ricinulei and Solifugae. CSIRO Publishing; Collingwood, Australia; xi+385 pp.
Keferstein, C. 1834. Die Naturgeschichte des Erdkörpers in ihren ersten Grundzügen: Zweiter Theil: Geologie und Paläontologie. Fleischer; Leipzig, Germany; v+896 pp.
Lubin, Y., & T. Bilde. 2007. The evolution of sociality in spiders. Advances in the Study of Behavior 37: 83–145.
Machado, G. 2002. Maternal care, defensive behavior, and sociality in neotropical Goniosoma harvestmen (Arachnida, Opiliones). Insectes Sociaux 49(4): 388–393.
Mazur, N., M. Nagel, U. Leppin, G. Bierbaum, & J. Rust. 2014. The extraction of fossil arthropods from Lower Eocene Cambay amber. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 59(2): 455–459.
Petrunkevitch, A.I. 1913. A monograph of the terrestrial Palaeozoic Arachnida of North America. Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 18: 1–137.
Petrunkevitch, A. 1971. Chiapas amber spiders, II. University of California Publications in Entomology 63: 1–44.
Pocock, R.I. 1911. A Monograph of the Terrestrial Carboniferous Arachnida of Great Britain. Palaeontographical Society; London, UK; [i]+84 pp., +3 pls.
Poinar, G., Jr., & A.E. Brown. 2004. A new whip spider (Arachnida: Amblypygi), Phrynus mexicana, is described from Mexican amber. Beiträge zur Araneologie 3B: 1881–1885.
Prendini, L. 2011. Order Amblypygi Thorell, 1883. Zootaxa 3148: 154.
Prendini, L., P. Weygoldt, & W.C. Wheeler. 2005. Systematics of the Damon variegatus group of African whip spiders (Chelicerata: Amblypygi): Evidence from behaviour, morphology and DNA. Organisms, Diversity, and Evolution 5(3): 203–236.
Rayor, L.S., & L.A. Taylor. 2006. Social behavior in amblypygids, and a reassessment of arachnid social patterns. Journal of Arachnology 34(2): 399–421.
Rust, J., H. Singh, R.S. Rana, T. McCann, L. Singh, K. Anderson, N. Sarkar, P.C. Nascimbene, F. Stebner, J.C. Thomas, M. Solórzano-Kraemer, C.J. Williams, M.S. Engel, A. Sahni, & D. Grimaldi. 2010. Biogeographic and evolutionary implications of a diverse paleobiota in amber from the Early Eocene of India. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. 107(43): 18360–18365.
Schawaller, W. 1979. Erstnachweis der Ordnung Geißelspinnen in Dominikanischem Bernstein (Stuttgarter Bernsteinsammlung: Arachnida, Amblypygi). Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Naturkunde, Serie B, Geologie und Paläontologie 50: 1–12.
Schawaller, W. 1982. Neue Befunde an Geißelspinnen in Dominikanischem Bernstein (Stuttgarter Bernsteinsammlung: Arachnida, Amblypygi). Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Naturkunde, Serie B, Geologie und Paläontologie 86: 1–12.
Scudder, S.H. 1876. New and interesting insects from the Carboniferous of Cape Breton. Canadian Naturalist and Quarterly Journal of Science 8(3): 88–90.
Scudder, S.H. 1890. Illustrations of the Carboniferous Arachnida of North America, of the orders Anthracomarti and Pedipalpi. Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History 4: 443–456.
Selden, P.A., W.A. Shear, & P.M. Bonamo. 1991. A spider and other arachnids from the Devonian of New York, and reinterpretations of Devonian Araneae. Palaeontology 34(2): 241–281.
Shi, G., D.A. Grimaldi, G.E. Harlow, J. Wang, J. Wang, M. Yang, W. Lei, Q. Li, & X. Li. 2012. Age constraint on Burmese amber based on U-Pb dating of zircons. Cretaceous Research 37: 155–163.
Shivashankar, T. 1994. Advanced sub-social behaviour in the scorpion Heterometrus fulvipes Brunner (Arachnida). Journal of Biosciences 19(1): 81–90.
Warburg, M.R. 2000. Intra- and interspecific cohabitation of scorpions in the field and the effect of density, food, and shelter on their interactions. Ethology 18(1): 59–63.
Weitschat, W., & W. Wichard. 2002. Atlas of Plants and Animals in Baltic Amber. Friedrich Pfeil Verlag; Munich, Germany; 256 pp.
Weygoldt, P. 1996. Evolutionary morphology of whip spiders: Towards a phylogenetic system (Chelicerata: Arachnida: Amblypygi). Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research 34(4): 185–202.
Weygoldt, P. 2000. Whip Spiders (Chelicerata: Amblypygi): Their Biology, Morphology and Systematics. Apollo Books; Stenstrup, Denmark; 163 pp.
Weygoldt, P. 2002. Fighting, courtship, and spermatophore morphology of the whip spider Musicodamon atlanteus Fage, 1939 (Phrynichidae) (Chelicerata, Amblypygi). Zoologischer Anzeiger 241(3):245–254.
Weygoldt, P. 2009. Courtship and mating in the whip spider Phrynichus orientalis Weygoldt, 1998 (Chelicerata: Amblypygi). Zoologischer Anzeiger 248(3): 177–181.
Additional Files
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright for articles published in Novitates Paleoentomologicae is retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal.
Novitates Paleoentomologicae is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use, with proper attribution, in educational and other non-commercial settings.
