Maternal care in Mid-Cretaceous lagonomegopid spiders

• 全文链接
• 请求原文

作   者：

Guo, Xiangbo;  Selden, Paul A.;  Ren, Dong; 

作者机构：

Capital Normal Univ;  Peoples R China;  Coll Life Sci;  105 Xisanhuanbeilu;  Beijing 100048; 

关键词：

spiderling;  Lagonomegopidae;  behaviour;  Cretaceous;  maternal care;  egg sac; 

期刊名称：

Proceedings of the Royal Society. Biological sciences

i s s n：

0962-8452

年卷期：

2021 年 288 卷 1958 期

页   码：

摘   要：

Maternal care benefits the survival and fitness of offspring, often at a cost to the mother's future reproduction, and has evolved repeatedly throughout the animal kingdom. In extant spider species, this behaviour is very common and has different levels and diverse forms. However, evidence of maternal care in fossil spiders is quite rare. In this study, we describe four Mid-Cretaceous (approx. 99 Ma) amber specimens from northern Myanmar with an adult female, part of an egg sac and some spiderlings of the extinct family Lagonomegopidae preserved, which suggest that adult lagonomegopid females probably built and then guarded egg sacs in their retreats or nests, and the hatched spiderlings may have stayed together with their mother for some time. The new fossils represent early evidence of maternal care in fossil spiders, and enhance our understanding of the evolution of this behaviour.