''Termitaradus protera'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of termite bug in the family

Termitaphididae Termitaphididae, occasionally called termite bugs, is a small tropicopolitan family of true bugs placed in the superfamily Aradoidea. Typically members of Termitaphididae are small, being an average of -, and flattened with laminae extending o ...

known from several

Late Oligocene The Chattian is, in the geologic timescale, the younger of two ages or upper of two stages of the Oligocene Epoch/Series. It spans the time between . The Chattian is preceded by the Rupelian and is followed by the Aquitanian (the lowest stage ...

Early Miocene The Early Miocene (also known as Lower Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages: the Aquitanian and Burdigalian stages. The sub-epoch lasted from 23.03 ± 0.05 Ma to 15.97 ± 0.05 Ma (million years ago). It was prece ...

fossils found in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. ''T. protera'' is the only species in the extant genus ''

Termitaradus ''Termitaradus '' is a small tropicopolitan genus of true bugs placed in the family Termitaphididae. As is typical for the family, living members of ''Termitaradus '' are small, being an average of to , and flattened with laminae extending out ...

'' to have been described from fossils found in

Mexican amber Mexican amber, also known as Chiapas Amber is amber found in Mexico, created during the Early Miocene and middle Miocene epochs of the Cenozoic Era in southwestern North America. As with other ambers, a wide variety of taxa have been found as inc ...

and is one of four species from new world amber; the others are ''

Termitaradus avitinquilinus ''Termitaradus avitinquilinus'' is an extinct species of termite bug in the family Termitaphididae known from several possibly Miocene fossils found in the Dominican Republic. ''T. avitinquilinus'' is the first species in the genus ''Termitaradu ...

'', '' Termitaradus dominicanus'' and ''

Termitaradus mitnicki ''Termitaradus mitnicki'' is an extinct species of true bug in the family Termitaphididae known only from early Miocene Burdigalian stage Dominican amber deposits on the island of Hispaniola. The species is known from the holotype, number "KU-D ...

''. ''T. protera'' was also the first termite bug described from the fossil record.

History and classification

''Termitaradus protera'' is known from a series of fossil insects which are inclusions in transparent chunks of Mexican amber. An amber specimen, in the collection of W. Weitschat of

Hamburg, Germany (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

, has a total of five ''T. protera'' individuals preserved together with portions of seven worker caste termites. The amber was produced by the extinct leguminous tree ''

Hymenaea mexicana ''Hymenaea mexicana'' is an extinct legume species in the family Fabaceae described from a series of isolated fossil petals, leaflets, and amber. The species is known from a group of Late Oligocene to Early Miocene locations in southern Mexico. ...

'', and has dimensions of . Mexican amber is recovered from fossil-bearing rocks in the

Simojovel Simojovel is one of the 119 municipalities of Chiapas, in southern Mexico. As of 2010, the municipality had a total population of 40,297, up from 31,615 as of 2005. It covers an area of 446.99 km2. The municipality had 145 localities, the ...

region of

Chiapas Chiapas (; Tzotzil language, Tzotzil and Tzeltal language, Tzeltal: ''Chyapas'' ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas), is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, ...

, Mexico. The amber dates from between 22.5 million years old, for the youngest sediments of the

Balumtun Sandstone The Balumtun Sandstone is a geologic formation in Chiapas, Mexico. The formation is up to 760 metres thick, and consists of gray sandstone, that were deposited during the Upper Aquitanian stage of the Early Miocene. See also * List of fossili ...

, and 26 million years old for the oldest

La Quinta Formation The La Quinta Formation is a Jurassic geologic formation which crops out in the Cordillera de Mérida and Serranía del Perijá of western Venezuela and northeastern Colombia. The formation is also present in the subsurface of the Cesar-Rancher ...

. This age range straddles the boundary between the

and

and is complicated by both formations being secondary deposits for the amber; the age range is therefore only the youngest that it might be. The fossil was examined by paleoentomologists

George Poinar Jr. George O. Poinar Jr. (born April 25, 1936) is an American entomologist and writer. He is known for popularizing the idea of extracting DNA from insects fossilized in amber, an idea which received widespread attention when adapted by Michael Cr ...

Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering co ...

and Ernst Heiss of

Innsbruck, Austria Innsbruck (; bar, Innschbruck, label=Austro-Bavarian ) is the capital of Tyrol and the fifth-largest city in Austria. On the River Inn, at its junction with the Wipp Valley, which provides access to the Brenner Pass to the south, it had a pop ...

; Poinar's

description Description is the pattern of narrative development that aims to make vivid a place, object, character, or group. Description is one of four rhetorical modes (also known as ''modes of discourse''), along with exposition, argumentation, and narr ...

of the fossil was published in a 2011 article in the journal '' Palaeodiversity''. The species was first studied and described by Poinar and John T. Doyen in 1992.

Description

The individuals of ''Termitaradus protera'' in the 2011 specimen include three females and two individuals too incomplete to identify to sex. The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

specimen described by Poinar and Doyen is long, while the three females of the 2011 specimen range from long. In both the 1992 holotype specimen and specimen numbers one and two in the 2011 fossil, each side of the body is segmented into fourteen distinct lobes. Each of the lobes is divided into between four and twelve lobules with circular to oblong outer margins along the edges of the insect. As with some other ''Termitaradus'' species, the

tibia The tibia (; ), also known as the shinbone or shankbone, is the larger, stronger, and anterior (frontal) of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates (the other being the fibula, behind and to the outside of the tibia); it connects ...

of the frontmost leg, called a protibia, has a grouping of thick

setae In biology, setae (singular seta ; from the Latin word for "bristle") are any of a number of different bristle- or hair-like structures on living organisms. Animal setae Protostomes Annelid setae are stiff bristles present on the body. Th ...

in a comb-like structure. It has been suggested that these groupings of setae may be grooming combs in the living species. ''T. protera'' is the longest species of ''Termitaradus''; the three Dominican amber species are shorter. ''T. dominicanus'' is the next longest species at , with ''T. mitnicki'' long, and the smallest amber species is ''T. avitinquilinus'' at .

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q7702877 Aradoidea Oligocene insects Miocene insects Fossil taxa described in 1992 Hemiptera of North America Mexican amber Prehistoric insects of North America Taxa named by George Poinar Jr.