Fossil scales illuminate the early evolution of lepidopterans and structural colors.,Science Advances

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Fossil scales illuminate the early evolution of lepidopterans and structural colors.
Science Advances ( IF 13.6 ) Pub Date : 2018-Apr-01 , DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1700988
Qingqing Zhang _{1,

2} , Wolfram Mey ₃ , Jörg Ansorge ₄ , Timothy A Starkey ₅ , Luke T McDonald ₆ , Maria E McNamara ₆ , Edmund A Jarzembowski _{1,

7} , Wilfried Wichard ₈ , Ulysses Thomson _{9,

10} , Xiaoyin Ren ₁ , Jun Chen _{1,

11} , Haichun Zhang ₁ , Bo Wang _{1,

12}

Affiliation

State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China.
University of Sciences and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute of Evolution and Biodiversity Research, Humboldt University, D-10115 Berlin, Germany.
Institute of Geography and Geology, University of Greifswald, D-17487 Greifswald, Germany.
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Exeter, Stocker Road, Exeter EX4 4QL, UK.
School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University College Cork, North Mall, Cork T23 TK30, Ireland.
Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK.
Institute of Biology and its Didactics, University of Cologne, D-50931 Cologne, Germany.
School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TQ, UK.
Department of Natural Sciences, National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh EH1 1JF, UK.
Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Linyi University, Linyi 276000, China.
Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.

Lepidopteran scales exhibit remarkably complex ultrastructures, many of which produce structural colors that are the basis for diverse communication strategies. Little is known, however, about the early evolution of lepidopteran scales and their photonic structures. We report scale architectures from Jurassic Lepidoptera from the United Kingdom, Germany, Kazakhstan, and China and from Tarachoptera (a stem group of Amphiesmenoptera) from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber. The Jurassic lepidopterans exhibit a type 1 bilayer scale vestiture: an upper layer of large fused cover scales and a lower layer of small fused ground scales. This scale arrangement, plus preserved herringbone ornamentation on the cover scale surface, is almost identical to those of some extant Micropterigidae. Critically, the fossil scale ultrastructures have periodicities measuring from 140 to 2000 nm and are therefore capable of scattering visible light, providing the earliest evidence of structural colors in the insect fossil record. Optical modeling confirms that diffraction-related scattering mechanisms dominate the photonic properties of the fossil cover scales, which would have displayed broadband metallic hues as in numerous extant Micropterigidae. The fossil tarachopteran scales exhibit a unique suite of characteristics, including small size, elongate-spatulate shape, ridged ornamentation, and irregular arrangement, providing novel insight into the early evolution of lepidopteran scales. Combined, our results provide the earliest evidence for structural coloration in fossil lepidopterans and support the hypothesis that fused wing scales and the type 1 bilayer covering are groundplan features of the group. Wing scales likely had deep origins in earlier amphiesmenopteran lineages before the appearance of the Lepidoptera.

更新日期：2018-04-12

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