Ninety-nine million years ago, a tiny insect became entombed in tree resin in what is now Myanmar, and in that stillness it preserved a secret about the ancient world it inhabited. Scientists have now named it Cretodorus noonoo — a planthopper whose mouthparts stretched nearly twice the length of its own body, folded like a flexible straw to navigate the deep crevices of thick tree bark. Its discovery is not merely a curiosity of anatomy; it is a clue that the Cretaceous forests were shaped by fire, and that life, as ever, found its way into the spaces that hardship created.
99-Million-Year-Old Insect Had Straw-Like Mouth Twice Its Body Length
Long, flexible mouthparts could snake through narrow cracks in bark
Mark
So we have this insect with a straw-like mouth twice its body length. That's the headline. But what was it actually doing with that thing?
Mimi
It was feeding on sap deep inside tree bark. The long, flexible mouthparts let it reach into cracks and crevices where rigid mouthparts couldn't go. It's a specialist adaptation.
Luke
But we're inferring that from the structure and the absence of pollen, right? We don't have direct evidence of what it ate.
Mimi
Correct. But the anatomy strongly suggests it. The grooved lobes at the tip, the backward-pointing orientation—it all points to a piercing-and-sucking system for sap, not nectar.
Mark
And the straw-like structure—the folds at right angles—that's what kept it from collapsing?
Mimi
Exactly. The researchers used micro-computed tomography to see inside. Those folds gave it flexibility without letting it kink. Several specimens were even preserved bent, which confirmed the hypothesis.
Luke
How many specimens are we talking about here?
Mimi
Thirteen amber fossils from Myanmar, all from the Neazoniidae family. This new species, Cretodorus noonoo, is one of them.
Mark
And the bigger picture—why does this matter beyond just a new insect?
Mimi
Because similar feeding structures show up in multiple unrelated insect groups from the same period. That suggests the Cretaceous forests were full of thick-barked trees.
Luke
Which the researchers link to fire, because fire-prone environments select for thicker bark. But that's a chain of inference—we're not finding charred wood in every specimen.
Mimi
No, but the resin-producing forests do show evidence of recurrent fires. It's a reasonable hypothesis about forest ecology.
Mark
So one insect in amber becomes a clue about what the whole forest was like.
Mimi
That's the power of it. You're reconstructing an ecosystem from a single preserved creature.
Le Pouls
- A 99-million-year-old insect preserved in amber has been identified as an entirely new species, its extraordinary anatomy upending assumptions about how ancient insects fed.
- The creature's mouthparts — nearly twice its body length and engineered with accordion-like folds — could bend without collapsing, allowing it to snake into bark crevices no rigid appendage could reach.
- Researchers ruled out nectar-feeding based on the mouthparts' backward orientation and the absence of pollen, pointing instead to deep-bark sap extraction as the insect's ecological niche.
- The same specialized feeding architecture appearing independently across multiple unrelated Cretaceous insect groups suggests a broader ecological pressure — likely forests of unusually thick-barked trees shaped by recurring fires.
- Published from amber specimens studied across institutions in Israel and China, the findings reframe a single fossil as evidence for reconstructing the texture and dynamics of an entire lost ecosystem.
Ninety-nine million years ago, a tiny insect became entombed in tree resin in what is now Myanmar, and in that stillness it preserved a secret about the ancient world it inhabited. Scientists have now named it Cretodorus noonoo — a planthopper whose mouthparts stretched nearly twice the length of its own body, folded like a flexible straw to navigate the deep crevices of thick tree bark. Its discovery is not merely a curiosity of anatomy; it is a clue that the Cretaceous forests were shaped by fire, and that life, as ever, found its way into the spaces that hardship created.
Ninety-nine million years ago, a small insect landed on tree resin in what is now Myanmar and was sealed inside amber — preserved until scientists recently uncovered something remarkable within it: mouthparts nearly twice the length of its own body.
The species, named Cretodorus noonoo, belonged to an ancient planthopper family. Researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology studied thirteen amber specimens and found that the feeding apparatus was not merely long — it was architecturally ingenious. Covered in right-angled folds, the mouthparts functioned like a bendy drinking straw, flexible enough to navigate tight spaces without kinking or collapsing. Several specimens were preserved mid-bend, lending physical weight to the theory.
The researchers considered and dismissed nectar-feeding: the mouthparts pointed backward, and no pollen was found on any specimen. Their conclusion was that Cretodorus noonoo was a specialist in extracting sap from deep within tree bark — threading its flexible apparatus through narrow crevices to reach what rigid mouthparts never could. Two grooved lobes at the tip likely anchored the insect against the bark walls during feeding.
What elevates the discovery beyond a single species is what it implies about the broader Cretaceous world. Similar elongated or corrugated feeding structures appear across several unrelated insect groups from the same era, suggesting the forests were dominated by thick-barked trees — possibly the result of frequent fires, which drive trees to develop thicker bark as protection. One insect, trapped in resin for a hundred million years, had become a window into the ecology of an entire vanished world.
Ninety-nine million years ago, a small insect landed on tree resin in what is now Myanmar. The resin hardened into amber, sealing the creature inside a time capsule. When scientists examined the fossil recently, they found something extraordinary: a new species with mouthparts nearly twice as long as its entire body.
The insect, named Cretodorus noonoo, belonged to an ancient family of planthoppers called Neazoniidae. Researchers from Tel Aviv University in Israel and the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology in China studied thirteen amber specimens from Myanmar and published their findings in the journal Insects. What made these insects unusual wasn't just the length of their feeding apparatus—it was the structure. The mouthparts were covered in folds set at right angles to one another, a design that gave them the flexibility of a drinking straw. When scientists used high-resolution micro-computed tomography to reconstruct the internal architecture, they confirmed the folds weren't decorative. They were functional, preventing the long, delicate mouthparts from kinking or collapsing under their own weight. Several specimens were preserved in a bent position, which further supported this theory.
The obvious question was why. Modern relatives of Cretodorus noonoo have simple needle-like mouthparts, suitable for piercing plant tissue and drawing out fluids. Butterflies, by contrast, have long, flexible proboscises designed to sip nectar from flowers. But the researchers ruled out nectar-feeding for the ancient insect. The mouthparts pointed backward rather than forward, and no pollen was found on any of the preserved specimens. Instead, the team proposed that Cretodorus noonoo was a specialist in extracting sap from deep within tree bark. Rigid mouthparts couldn't navigate the narrow cracks and crevices where sap accumulated. Long, flexible ones could snake through those tight spaces and position the piercing organs at the tip—which had two grooved lobes that likely opened during feeding to anchor the apparatus against the bark walls.
The discovery hints at something larger about the Cretaceous world. Similar long or corrugated feeding structures appear in several unrelated insect groups from the same period, suggesting the forests were dominated by thick-barked trees. The researchers cautiously connected this to fire. Resin-producing forests of the Cretaceous show evidence of recurrent burning, and trees in fire-prone environments typically develop thicker bark as a survival adaptation. If fires were common, bark would have been thick, and insects would have evolved the specialized feeding equipment to exploit that resource.
Leonidas-Romanos Davranoglou, one of the researchers at Tel Aviv University, framed the significance plainly: this wasn't merely adding another name to the catalog of extinct species. It was another piece of the puzzle for reconstructing how ancient ecosystems actually worked—what the forests looked like, what lived in them, and how the creatures adapted to their environment. A single insect trapped in resin for a hundred million years had become a window into a lost world.
Citations marquantes
This is not simply the addition of another name to the tree of life, but another piece of the puzzle that enables us to reconstruct what ecosystems looked like and how they functioned tens of millions of years ago.— Leonidas-Romanos Davranoglou, School of Zoology, Tel Aviv University
Envie de l'histoire complète ?
Lire l'original sur BBC Wildlife Magazine ↗
Education