The wings of the Chinese binary mosquito are used for decoration. (Photo: China News Service)
Continental Center/Comprehensive Report
Zoologica Scripta, an internationally renowned top journal in the field of zoology, recently published a new species of marine insects, "Chinese dipterodons", collected from Taizhou and Zhoushan, Zhejiang. It is reported that such mosquitoes can not fly due to the degeneration of wings, mating methods are also more special, male adults will first glide through the water surface to fight, the winner can be stationary on the surface of the female adult mating.
Comprehensive land media reports show that the Chinese dipterocarp is quite different from other species of the family Pterodactylosaurus, whether it is morphological characteristics, movement mode, or living environment. Qi Xin, a professor at the School of Life Sciences at Taizhou University, pointed out, "It has a pair of degraded wings, and although it has lost its ability to fly, it can only glide on the surface of the water in order to adapt to living in the marine environment."
The male Chinese binary mosquito must first glide on the surface of the water to fight before the winning side can mate with the female.
Dr. Lin Xiaolong of the School of Life Sciences of Nankai University said that the ancestors of this species lived in fresh water at an early age, so he speculated that this type of marine species may have formed between 19 million and 29 million years ago, and its ancestral taxons adapted to the habitat of seawater and evolved specific morphological structures.
In addition, the Chinese dipterocarp is a new species of the family Pycnidae, which was first discovered in 2012 by Professor Qi Xin of the School of Life Sciences of Taizhou University on the West Flash Island in the Zhoushan Islands, and has since been found in a large number of marine fish ponds in Sanmen County, Taizhou. It is worth mentioning that the mating of the Chinese binary mosquito is very special, and the male adult can glide quickly on the surface of the water and fight with other male adults to obtain the opportunity to mate with the female adults stationary on the water surface.
Chinese dipterocarp appears annually in early summer or early autumn.
According to the Chinese dipterocarp found off the coast of Zhejiang, they appear in early summer or early autumn every year, with a large-scale feathering period of about 2 weeks; Qi Xin said, "We speculate that its larvae can live in seawater and are ideal for the opening of marine aquatic economic animals, and we will further study this new species."