''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, 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

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

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. 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, 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

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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