''Bersta'' is an extinct genus of

hemiptera Hemiptera (; ) is an order (biology), order of insects, commonly called true bugs, comprising over 80,000 species within groups such as the cicadas, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, Reduviidae, assassin bugs, Cimex, bed bugs, and shield bugs. ...

n in the monotypic family Berstidae. It is known from two species found in the

Cenomanian The Cenomanian is, in the ICS' geological timescale, the oldest or earliest age of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or the lowest stage of the Upper Cretaceous Series. An age is a unit of geochronology; it is a unit of time; the stage is a unit in the s ...

aged

Burmese amber Burmese amber, also known as Burmite or Kachin amber, is amber from the Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar. The amber is dated to around 100 million years ago, during the latest Albian to earliest Cenomanian ages of the mid-Cretaceous period. The ...

of Myanmar. The external morphology suggests that the genus were beetle

mimics Materialise Mimics is an image processing software for 3D design and modeling, developed by Materialise NV, a Belgian company specialized in additive manufacturing software and technology for medical, dental and additive manufacturing industries ...

Etymology

The genus is named after Berstuk, a shapeshifting Slavic forest deity of the Sorb and

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peoples.

Morphology

The length of the members of the genus is less than 2.6 mm, the

abdominal The abdomen (colloquially called the belly, tummy, midriff, tucky or stomach) is the part of the body between the thorax (chest) and pelvis, in humans and in other vertebrates. The abdomen is the front part of the abdominal segment of the torso. ...

trichobothria Trichobothria (singular trichobothrium) are elongate setae ("hairs") present in arachnids, various orders of insects, and myriapods that function in the detection of airborne vibrations and currents, and electrical charge. In 1883, Friedrich Dahl ...

are absent, the abdominal spiracles are on unified sternal plates, and each

hemelytron An elytron (; ; , ) is a modified, hardened forewing of beetles (Coleoptera), though a few of the true bugs (Hemiptera) such as the family Schizopteridae are extremely similar; in true bugs, the forewings are called hemelytra (sometimes alterna ...

has three longitudinal veins present.

Ecology

The authors of the describing paper stated that the morphology strongly resembled those of beetles belonging to the families

Tenebrionidae Darkling beetle is the common name for members of the beetle family Tenebrionidae. The number of species in the Tenebrionidae is estimated at more than 20,000 and the family is cosmopolitan in distribution. Taxonomy ''Tenebrio'' is the Latin gen ...

Trogossitidae Trogossitidae, also known as bark-gnawing beetles, are a small family in the superfamily Cleroidea. Many taxa formerly within this family have been removed (as of 2019) to other families, such as Lophocateridae, Peltidae, Protopeltidae, Rentoni ...

and

Nitidulidae The sap beetles, also known as Nitidulidae, are a family (biology), family of beetles. They are small (2–6 mm) ovoid, usually dull-coloured beetles, with knobbed antenna (biology), antennae. Some have red or yellow spots or bands. They fe ...

. They proposed the ''Bersta'' could have been an

aggressive mimic Aggressive mimicry is a form of mimicry in which predators, parasites, or parasitoids share similar signals, using a harmless model, allowing them to avoid being correctly identified by their prey or host. Zoologists have repeatedly compared t ...

, using its morphology to fool potential prey by resembling them.

Phylogeny

A phylogenetic analysis found the genus to be a member of

Miroidea Miroidea is a superfamily of true bugs in the order Hemiptera. There are about 7 families and more than 15,000 described species in Miroidea. Families These seven families belong to the superfamily Miroidea: * Microphysidae Dohrn, 1859 * Mirida ...

, and the sister family to

Tingidae The Tingidae are a family of very small () insects in the order Hemiptera that are commonly referred to as lace bugs. This group is distributed worldwide with about 2,000 described species. They are called lace bugs because the pronotum and f ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q104861604 Burmese amber Fossil taxa described in 2020 Cimicomorpha Prehistoric insect genera