What bugged the dinosaurs? Poinar, George O; Poinar, Roberta
2008, 2010., 20100101, 2010, 2008-01-01
eBook, Book
Millions of years ago in the Cretaceous period, the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex--with its dagger-like teeth for tearing its prey to ribbons--was undoubtedly the fiercest carnivore to roam the Earth. Yet ...asWhat Bugged the Dinosaurs?reveals, T. rex was not the only killer. George and Roberta Poinar show how insects--from biting sand flies to disease-causing parasites--dominated life on the planet and played a significant role in the life and death of the dinosaurs.
The Poinars bring the age of the dinosaurs marvelously to life. Analyzing exotic insects fossilized in Cretaceous amber at three major deposits in Lebanon, Burma, and Canada, they reconstruct the complex ecology of a hostile prehistoric world inhabited by voracious swarms of insects. The Poinars draw upon tantalizing new evidence from their amazing discoveries of disease-producing vertebrate pathogens in Cretaceous blood-sucking flies, as well as intestinal worms and protozoa found in fossilized dinosaur excrement, to provide a unique view of how insects infected with malaria, leishmania, and other pathogens, together with intestinal parasites, could have devastated dinosaur populations.
A scientific adventure story from the authors whose research inspiredJurassic Park,What Bugged the Dinosaurs?? offers compelling evidence of how insects directly and indirectly contributed to the dinosaurs' demise.
Hastisetae are extremely elaborate and intricate insect setae that occur solely on dermestid larvae (Coleoptera: Dermestidae). The present work characterizes hastisetae found in mid-Cretaceous amber ...from Myanmar and compares them to hastisetae found on extant dermestid larvae. The presence of hastisetae in Myanmar amber shows that lineages of dermestid beetles had already developed hastisetae by the mid-Cretaceous and their presence allows us to follow the evolutionary development of this particular arthropod structure over the past 100 million years. Hastisetae attached to a parasitic wasp in the same piece of amber indicates that ancient dermestid beetles used their hastisetae for defense, similar to their function today.
•Ancient hastisetae 100 million years old are reported from Myanmar amber.•Ancient hastisetae establish lineages of the family Dermestidae in the mid-Cretaceous.•Detailed structure of ancient hastisetae are provided.•Presence of ancient hastisetae in contact with a parasitic wasp suggests they were used for defense in the mid-Cretaceous.•Ancient hastisetae are compared to those of extant dermestid larva.
Fossil evidence of insect pathogens Poinar, George; Poinar, Roberta
Journal of invertebrate pathology,
07/2005, Letnik:
89, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The present report describes fossil evidence of insect pathogens, heretofore, almost non-existent, from six samples of amber ranging in age from 15 to 100 million years. They include a cytoplasmic ...polyhedrosis virus and trypanosomatid infection in an adult biting midge (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae), and a nuclear polyhedrosis virus in an adult sand fly (Diptera: Phlebotomidae), both from Early Cretaceous Burmese amber, several types of fungal thalli on the cuticle of an adult mosquito (Culicidae: Diptera), as well as a fungal growth on the prothorax of a fungus gnat (Mycetophilidae: Diptera) in Dominican amber and large tumors in the body cavity of a caterpillar (Lepidoptera) in Mexican amber. These discoveries suggest that insect polyhedrosis viruses were present 100 million years ago and present the possibility that vertebrate arboviruses (especially those in the family Reoviridae) could have evolved from cytoplasmic polyhedrosis viruses infecting biting insects. The flagellates in the Early Cretaceous biting midge represent the first fossil record of monogenetic trypanosomatid infections of arthropods.
A trypanosomatid (Trypanosomatidae: Kinetoplastida) associated with a blood-filled female sand fly in Cretaceous Burmese amber, is described in the new genus and species,
Paleoleishmania proterus. ...The genus
Paleoleishmania is established as a collective genus for digenetic fossil trypanosomes associated with sand flies. Amastigotes, promastigotes and paramastigotes are described.
Paleoleishmania proterus is the first fossil kinetoplastid and provides a minimum age for the digenetic Trypanosomatidae. Its discovery indicates that vector-borne pathogens had been established by the Early Cretaceous.
A blood-filled sand fly, Palaeomyia burmitis, was recently described from Early Cretaceous Burmese amber. Within the alimentary canal of this sand fly were the amastigotes and promastigotes of a ...digenetic leishmanial trypanosomatid. Inside the lumen of the thoracic midgut of the fossil sand fly were nucleated blood cells, some of which were intact and others in various stages of lysis and disintegration. The present study identifies these blood cells as reptilian and describes putative developing amastigotes inside spherical to oval whitish vacuoles within some of the fossil blood cells. The significance of this find is discussed, especially regarding the high possibility that Cretaceous dinosaurs were infected by trypanosomatids.
Gorging on Dinosaurs Poinar, Roberta; Poinar, George; Poinar, George, Jr
What Bugged the Dinosaurs?,
01/2010
Book Chapter
Fresh vertebrate blood is not exactly everyone’s ideal meal. But for a few animals such as leeches, vampire bats, and hematophagous insects, it represents haute cuisine. And even some humans, like ...the Masai of Kenya, are well known for surviving on a mixture of milk and blood drawn from cows and goats. But by far, the largest group of animals to develop this proclivity is bloodsucking insects, and they have truly perfected this habit because their very survival has depended on this sanguinary diet since the Cretaceous.
Even when we slather ourselves with repellants, bloodsucking insects can make our lives
Fleas and Lice Poinar, Roberta; Poinar, George; Poinar, George, Jr
What Bugged the Dinosaurs?,
01/2010
Book Chapter
Parents cringe when their child brings a note from school informing them that a lice infection has been detected in the classroom and their child needs to be treated. And pet lovers know all about ...the astonishing jumping abilities of fleas and their painful, itching bites. Such pests have followed us into urban communities, and even with all our efforts to control them, still manage to plague us. Think how primitive man must have suffered!
Where would these pests have occurred on dinosaurs? A reasonable location would be among the plumage of feathered dinosaurs. Fleas and lice thrive under the
One of the basic premises of this book is that Cretaceous insects transmitted pathogens that either directly or indirectly affected dinosaurs. The results were not only dinosaur disease and mortality ...but also the destruction of dinosaur food plants. We feel that most, if not all, present-day vector-pathogen associations were already established or arose at some point in the Cretaceous, even though different genera and species of hosts and vectors were involved.
The origins and coevolution of pathogens with their vectors and plant or animal hosts are complex. When the first dinosaurs walked the earth, they already came with pathogens carried
The Cretaceous was a moldy world, not that much different from the tropical regions today. Fungi parasitized other fungi, and these in turn were parasitized by still others.³⁴⁵ Having lived in the ...tropics, we know what it is like to find masses of long gray filaments emerging from shoes left in the closet a few days, spots spreading over various parts of your skin, spores clogging your respiratory system, and delicate strands etching the surfaces of microscope lens. In fact, practically all of the microscopes in our West African laboratory were useless because of fungal-caused scratches on the lens surfaces
