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| photo from Smithsonian Insider |
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| photo from content 化石銀杏葉子的食痕 |
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| Juracimbrophlebia ginkgofolia, Holotype photo from Smithsonian Insider |
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| ginkgoalean leaf Yimaia capituliformis（銀杏葉子的化石）photo from Smithsonian Insider |
摘要
A near-perfect mimetic association between a mecopteran insect species and a ginkgoalean plant species from the late Middle Jurassic of northeastern China recently has been discovered. The association stems from a case of mixed identity between a particular plant and an insect in the laboratory and the field. This confusion is explained as a case of leaf mimesis, wherein the appearance of the multilobed leaf of Yimaia capituliformis (the ginkgoalean model) was accurately replicated by the wings and abdomen of the cimbrophlebiid Juracimbrophlebia ginkgofolia (the hangingfly mimic). Our results suggest that hangingflies developed leaf mimesis either as an antipredator avoidance device or possibly as a predatory strategy to provide an antiherbivore function for its plant hosts, thus gaining mutual benefit for both the hangingfly and the ginkgo species. This documentation of mimesis is a rare occasion whereby exquisitely preserved, co-occurring fossils occupy a narrow spatiotemporal window that reveal likely reciprocal mechanisms which plants and insects provide mutual defensive support during their preangiospermous evolutionary histories.
昨天翻到一篇有趣的文章，作者說這種來自侏儸紀的長翅目的蠍蛉(Juracimbrophlebia ginkgofolia)偽裝一種多瓣葉的銀杏(Yimaia capituliformis)。
像不像是其次，我是覺得挺有趣的，連化石都能找出擬態的關係。
Wrote by Chia-Hsuan Wei
