News from the Department for Science and Research

A new unusual kind of bug was found by researches in amber.​ A group of researchers from Saint Petersburg, workers of the Institute of Zoology RAS Boris Kataev, Aleksand Kireichuk, Boris Anokhin, and the senior research associate at the Kaliningrad Regional Amber Museum Andranik Manukian have published an article in the international journal "Cretaceous Research". They described an inclusion of the earlier unknown carabid beetle in the Burmese amber from the Cenomanian Age, around 100 million years old.

According to the researchers, the insect belongs to the tribe Metriini. It is notable for its exceedingly elongate mandibles and, what is especially astonishing – absence of eyes. The beetle had a compact, plain body, what enabled it to dig in the leaf-litter. Have such way of life, it did not need eyes. It inhabited forests, dead, decaying wood. It supports the researchers' point of view, that modern Metriini are an old relict group of carabid beetles.

The insects were predators, they fed on centipedes. At the time, they were more widely spread. Today, modern genera close to Metriini are found in the west of the North America, and in the South-Eastern Asia.