A Mesozoic species of Anotylus (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae, Oxytelinae) from Liaoning, China, with the earliest evidence of sexual dimorphism in rove beetles

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Abstract

A new species of the staphylinid subfamily Oxytelinae is described and figured from a series of well-preserved compression fossils of the Yixian Formation (Early Cretaceous), Beipiao City, Liaoning Province, northeastern China. The species is placed in the recent genus Anotylus Thomson, 1859 based on typical morphological features for the genus as well as secondary sexual characters. The strong projection of the anterior pronotal angles is a feature also possessed by males of several recent Neotropical taxa in the genus. This is the earliest fossil rove beetle with clearly demonstrable sexual dimorphism.

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A new eutriconodont mammal and evolutionary development in early mammals.

P. Chen, Zhe Luo, Meng-Hsiang Chen … (2007)

Detachment of the three tiny middle ear bones from the reptilian mandible is an important innovation of modern mammals. Here we describe a Mesozoic eutriconodont nested within crown mammals that clearly illustrates this transition: the middle ear bones are connected to the mandible via an ossified Meckel's cartilage. The connected ear and jaw structure is similar to the embryonic pattern in modern monotremes (egg-laying mammals) and placental mammals, but is a paedomorphic feature retained in the adult, unlike in monotreme and placental adults. This suggests that reversal to (or retention of) this premammalian ancestral condition is correlated with different developmental timing (heterochrony) in eutriconodonts. This new eutriconodont adds to the evidence of homoplasy of vertebral characters in the thoraco-lumbar transition and unfused lumbar ribs among early mammals. This is similar to the effect of homeobox gene patterning of vertebrae in modern mammals, making it plausible to extrapolate the effects of Hox gene patterning to account for homoplastic evolution of vertebral characters in early mammals.

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In search of the first flower: A jurassic angiosperm, archaefructus, from northeast china

M Dilcher, Eun-Sun Sun, Zhou Zhou … (1998)

Angiosperm fruiting axes were discovered from the Upper Jurassic of China. Angiosperms are defined by carpels enclosing ovules, a character demonstrated in this fossil. This feature is lacking in other fossils reported to be earliest angiosperms. The fruits are small follicles formed from conduplicate carpels helically arranged. Adaxial elongate stigmatic crests are conspicuous on each carpel. The basal one-third of the axes bore deciduous organs of uncertain affinities. No scars of subtending floral organs are present to define the individual fertile parts as floral units, but the leaf-like structures subtending each axis define them as flowers. These fruiting axes have primitive characters and characters not considered primitive.

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Flower-associated brachycera flies as fossil evidence for jurassic angiosperm origins

Ren Ren (1998)

Pollinating insects played a decisive role in the origin and early evolution of the angiosperms. Pollinating orthorrhaphous Brachycera fossils (short-horned flies) collected from Late Jurassic rocks in Liaoning Province of northeast China provide evidence for a pre-Cretaceous origin of angiosperms. Functional morphology and comparison with modern confamilial taxa show that the orthorrhaphous Brachycera were some of the most ancient pollinators. These data thus imply that angiosperms originated during the Late Jurassic and were represented by at least two floral types.