| Title |
Penis morphology in a Burmese amber harvestman
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
The Science of Nature, January 2016
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s00114-016-1337-4 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Jason A. Dunlop, Paul A. Selden, Gonzalo Giribet |
| Abstract |
A unique specimen of the fossil harvestman Halitherses grimaldii Giribet and Dunlop, 2005 (Arachnida: Opiliones) from the Cretaceous (ca. 99 Ma) Burmese amber of Myanmar reveals a fully extended penis. This is the first record of a male copulatory organ of this nature preserved in amber and is of special importance due to the age of the deposit. The penis has a slender, distally flattened truncus, a spatulate heart-shaped glans and a short distal stylus, twisted at the tip. In living harvestmen, the penis yields crucial characters for their systematics. Male genital morphology in H. grimaldii appears to be unique among the wider Dyspnoi clade to which this fossil belongs. The large eyes in the fossil differ markedly from other members of the subfamily Ortholasmatinae to which H. grimaldii was originally referred. Based on recent data, it has been argued that large eyes may be plesiomorphic for Palpatores (i.e. the suborders Eupnoi and Dyspnoi), potentially rendering this character plesiomorphic for the fossil too. Thus, the unique structure of the penis seen here, and the probable lack of diaphanous teeth, present in all other extant non-acropsopilionid Dyspnoi, suggest that H. grimaldii represents a new, extinct family of large-eyed dyspnoid harvestmen, Halithersidae fam. nov.; a higher taxon in amber diagnosed here on both somatic and genital characters. |
X Demographics
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Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Spain | 1 | 10% |
| United States | 1 | 10% |
| France | 1 | 10% |
| Canada | 1 | 10% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 10% |
| Unknown | 5 | 50% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 8 | 80% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 1 | 10% |
| Scientists | 1 | 10% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 31 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 1 | 3% |
| Germany | 1 | 3% |
| Brazil | 1 | 3% |
| Unknown | 28 | 90% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Bachelor | 6 | 19% |
| Student > Master | 6 | 19% |
| Researcher | 6 | 19% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 5 | 16% |
| Professor | 3 | 10% |
| Other | 2 | 6% |
| Unknown | 3 | 10% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 17 | 55% |
| Earth and Planetary Sciences | 7 | 23% |
| Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 2 | 6% |
| Chemistry | 1 | 3% |
| Unknown | 4 | 13% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 379. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 28 January 2023.
All research outputs
#81,043
of 25,249,294 outputs
Outputs from The Science of Nature
#9
of 2,261 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#1,367
of 408,683 outputs
Outputs of similar age from The Science of Nature
#2
of 32 outputs
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