Some females even use it as a predatory lure – to attract clueless males to eat. Light production is thought to have evolved in beetles’ vulnerable, soft larvae as a defence mechanism and to have been taken up by adults for other functions, such as communicating and attracting mates. The newly discovered specimen reveals that “a radiation of bioluminescent beetles occurred by the mid-Cretaceous” and had already begun to diversify then. “With over 3500 described species, beetles are the most diverse light-producing organisms on land, but when and how their pyrotechnic abilities came about has long remained a mystery,” says Erik Tihelka, from the University of Bristol, UK, co-author of a study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. It was unsuspectingly trapped and exquisitely preserved in golden amber in a dinosaur-dominant rainforest ecosystem about 100 million years ago. Glowing insects like fireflies, fire beetles and worms are a romantic, magical sight – but the fossil record of their light-producing adaptations is sparse.Ī beetle has now shone some of its light on this conundrum.
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