Bizarre Wingless Wasp Found Encased in 100-Million-Year-Old Burmese Amber

An enigmatic wingless parasitic wasp has been found preserved in mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber, a new study says.

Aptenoperissus burmanicus lived at the base of trees while dinosaurs wondered around above it, and is the only known specimen in a newly-created family, Aptenoperissidae. Scale bar – 1.0 mm. Image credit: George Poinar, Jr. / Oregon State University.

The unlucky tiny wasp was trapped in tree resin, which eventually fossilized into amber, about 100 million years ago, according to the study, published in the journal Cretaceous Research.

The piece of amber was found in the Hukawng Valley in Myanmar, where arthropods from 252 families have been found, one of the richest such deposits in all Cretaceous amber.

“When I first looked at this insect I had no idea what it was. You could see it’s tough and robust, and could give a painful sting,” said study co-author Prof. George Poinar, Jr., of Oregon State University.

The now-extinct insect, named Aptenoperissus burmanicus, probably crawled along the ground at the base of trees trying to find other insects and a place to lay its eggs. While dinosaurs strolled around above it, it looked for an insect grub of some kind it could sting.

After considerable debate, the study authors created a new family for the specimen, Aptenoperissidae, as part of the much larger order Hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps).

Within that family, Aptenoperissus burmanicus is now the only known specimen.

“If you focused on its strong hind legs you could call it a grasshopper. The antenna looked like an ant, the thick abdomen more like a cockroach,” Prof. Poinar said.

“But the face looked mostly like a wasp, and we finally decided it had to be some kind of Hymenoptera.”

The specimen is a female, and its long legs may have helped it pull out of cavities into which it had burrowed, seeking pupae of other insects into which to lay its eggs. With that lifestyle, wings would have been a hindrance.

Aptenoperissus burmanicus may have attacked other beetles with its sharp and jagged stinger, and it would have had a pretty strong leaping ability.

It did have a cleaning mechanism on the tip of its antenna that is characteristic of Hymenoptera.

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A.P. Rasnitsyn et al. 2017. Bizarre wingless parasitic wasp from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber (Hymenoptera, Ceraphronoidea, Aptenoperissidae fam. nov.). Cretaceous Research 69: 113-118; doi: 10.1016/j.cretres.2016.09.003