Vol. 1 No. 1 (2020): Biosis: Biological Systems

Presently, three families of Coleoptera (Meloidae, Ripiphoridae and Cleridae) produce triungulin larvae that parasitize aculeate Hymenoptera, especially various lineages of social and solitary bees, as well as wasps and other insects. The discovery of a fossil bee with associated beetle triungulins in mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber provides the earliest known date for the co-evolution between bees and beetle triungulins, specifically those of the family Cleridae (Coleoptera). The fossil bee has been described in a new family and the beetle triungulins are described in the present work in the form genus and species Anebomorpha cercorhampha gen. et sp. nov. (Coleoptera: Cleridae). The description of Anebomorpha cercorhampha is based on 21 triungulins of the family Cleridae, five of which are in direct contact with the primitive bee in the amber. The remainder are at various distances behind the bee. This is the earliest fossil evidence of co-evolution between beetle triungulins and a member of the aculeate Hymenoptera.

Since the earliest times, the problem of the locust has been a very serious one for agriculture and food production in particular. Devastating locust plagues are known from the Old and the New World where locust swarms terrified the earliest settlement and towns, leaving not a single green branch on the fields. Ways to combat locust plagues were often ineffective or extremely expensive due to a lack of information on the exact location of the newly hatched locusts; and the lack of an accurate assessment of the number of locusts in currently forming swarms. Rapidly developing GIS applications, especially as part of environmental modelling, appear to be a good means of forecasting a locust plague, being based on accurate ground observation and expert knowledge of the biology and ecology of the locust species. This paper represents an example of extended ecological modelling for the nesting conditions of Dociostaurus maroccanus, a well-known gregarious acridid species, with emphasis on the explanation of key environmental variables as revealed by the model.

Biofilm formation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa makes up a sizeable proportion of hospital-acquired infections, because bacteria in biofilms can resist antibiotic treatment. The extracellular polymeric substance of P. aeruginosa biofilm is an imprecise collection of extracellular polysaccharides, proteins and microbial cells. Rumex dentatus belongs to polygonaceae family. This family can be found in Middle East. The aim of this present study was to assess the effect of various concentrations of methanol extract of Rumex dentatus on biofilm formation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa after 48 h and 72 h. In this experimental study we collected Rumex dentatus from Khoramabad, Iran. The working extracts were 250, 125, 62.5, 31.25, 15.62, 7.81, 3.9, 1.95, 0.97 and 0.48 mg/ml. We used microtiter plate method to grow P. aeruginosa biofilm and assess the antibiofilm activity of plant extract. The composition of methanol extract obtained from Rumex dentatus was studied by gas chromatography. The minimum biofilm inhibitory concentration (MBIC) for P. aeruginosa found to be 250 mg/ml. GC-MS  analyses indicated that these fractions contained a variety of compounds including Bicyclo (3.1.1) heptan- 3 -one, 2, 6, 6- trimethyl,  Bicyclo (3.1.1) heptan, 6, 6- dimethyl and Eucalyptol. There were consequential correlations between antibiofilm activity and the concentration of extracts after 48 and 72 h.

Crickets (Orthoptera: Grylloidea) are a highly diverse and successful group that due to their chirping are often heard more often than they are seen. Their omnivorous diet allows them to exist in a variety of terrestrial habitats around the world. In some environments, cricket populations can build up and become plagues, resulting in significant damage to seedling crops. A new genus and species of cricket, Pherodactylus micromorphus gen. et sp. nov. (Orthoptera: Gryllidae) is described from mid-Cretaceous Myanmar amber. The new genus is characterized by the following features: head without prominent bristles, pronotum longer than wide, middle of pronotal disk with two distinct large dark “eyespots”, fore leg robust and 3 apical spurs arranged on inner side of fore leg tibia. Shed portions of a lizard skin adjacent to the specimen reveal possible evidence of attempted predation.

A total of 82 lizard specimens in amber have been reported around the world to date. Records of lizard inclusions extend from the Cretaceous to the Neogene: (1) Cretaceous lizard inclusions are dominated by Autarchoglossans from Lebanon and a diverse lizard fauna from Myanmar (Burma); (2) Paleogene lizard inclusions are relatively poorly preserved and are dominated by lacertids and gekkonids; (3) Neogene records are the most abundant, dominated by two extant genera, Anolis and Sphaerodactylus. Synthesizing important information from all reported specimens, we suggest that an investigation of lizard inclusions in amber is of great importance for the study of their evolution, community structure and adaptive radiation as well as the origin and evolution of adhesion mechanism in geckos, or the level of ancient faunal diversity.