''Manipulator modificaputis'' is an extinct

cockroach Cockroaches (or roaches) are a paraphyletic group of insects belonging to Blattodea, containing all members of the group except termites. About 30 cockroach species out of 4,600 are associated with human habitats. Some species are well-known as ...

which lived during the

Upper Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...

period. The holotype specimen is fossilized in a 100-million-year-old piece of

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 ...

, which was found in a quarry of volcanoclastic mudstone (a sedimentary rock) at Noije Bum in the

Hukawng Valley The Hukawng Valley ( my, ဟူးကောင်းချိုင့်ဝှမ်း; also spelt Hukaung Valley) is an isolated valley in Myanmar, roughly in area. It is located in Tanaing Township in the Myitkyina District of Kachin State i ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

. The insect has been described by Peter Vršanský, of the Geological Institute SAS of

Bratislava Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approxim ...

, and by Günter Bechly, of the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde in

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...

. The cockroach was found to have an elongated neck, a freely rotating head and unexpectedly long legs, which are indicative of a predatory lifestyle. However, in 2022, it is considered that ''Manipulator'' tend to live around and feed on flowers. In addition, this insect have some characters superficially look like similar to

mantises Mantises are an order (Mantodea) of insects that contains over 2,400 species in about 460 genera in 33 families. The largest family is the Mantidae ("mantids"). Mantises are distributed worldwide in temperate and tropical habitats. They ha ...

, however differ from other many characters. The insect body is long with long forewings for male, and body length, forewing length for female. The authors erected a new family, "Manipulatoridae," after examining the specimen on the basis of "the unique habitus with numerous autapomorphies along with several plesiomorphies." Other specimens including that of a juvenile were discovered from the Myanmar amber mines, and described in 2022. This species was found along with dozens of other extinct species of insects fully preserved in amber, making Noije Bum in the Hukawng Valley region one of the most important regions for amber fossils containing fully preserved insects. Dozens of other preserved insects were found in the area in Noije Bum, where the fossilized remains of the extinct species were also found. This species belonged to the invertebrate fauna of the ancient amber forest of the Myanmar region. It was the only member of the family Manipulatoridae until 2022, when the related genus '' Manipulatoides'' was described from the same deposit.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Manipulator (insect) Late Cretaceous insects Cockroach genera Prehistoric insect genera Fossil taxa described in 2015 Insects described in 2015 Burmese amber Fossils of Myanmar