Aldrovanda inopinata
| Aldrovanda inopinata | ||||||||||||
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
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| 6 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Aldrovanda inopinata | ||||||||||||
| Use Peters |
Aldrovanda inopinata is an extinct species from the sundew family(Droseraceae). It lived around 6 million years ago and is the only fossil relative of the recent water trap ( Aldrovanda vesiculosa ), of which vegetative parts have been preserved as fossils.
description
Only foliage fossils of this species have been preserved. The rounded to spoon-shaped leaves are 3 to 4 millimeters long and 2.5 to 3 millimeters wide and are traversed by a 150 µm thick, unbranched central vascular bundle , which at the end of the blade merges into a tail-like, fringed tip protruding from the blade. The mesophyll has three layers.
From the outside to the inside, the leaf can be divided into three zones: After the very narrow and thin-skinned edge, there is a slightly wider, grooved area that runs around the inside of the blade, which in turn is made up of very small cells . Just like the grooved area, the inside of the spider is covered with glands, some of which are arranged in groups. In contrast to the recent Aldrovanda vesiculosa, there are neither four-armed absorption glands nor sensory bristles; whether the latter are missing in the species or whether they are just not preserved cannot be said with absolute certainty.
Distribution and Finds
All finds of the species come from the underfloor of the brown coal of Wackersdorf . Originally they lived in reed areas of shallow waters and found themselves socialized and a. with ginger plants and screw trees . It then disappears in the upper seam because the area dried up at the time. Overall, it existed under very humid and warm, subtropical conditions.
etymology
The epithet inopinata is derived from the Latin inopinatus for "unexpected, surprising". Around twenty extinct species of the genus Aldrovanda have been found fossil, as has a 75 to 85 million year old find of the precursor species Palaeoaldrovanda splendens , but all of them were only known from fossil seeds or pollen. Due to the delicacy of the plants and their low mass, the discovery of vegetative fossils from Aldrovanda was considered extremely unlikely and came as a surprise, which was reflected in the species name.
literature
- Ilse Peters: The flora of the Upper Palatinate lignite and its ecological and stratigraphic significance. In: Palaeontographica. Dept. B: Paleophytology. 112, 1963, pp. 29-31.
Individual evidence
- ↑ See e.g. B. John D. Degreef: Fossil Aldrovanda , Carnivorous Plant Newsletter 26: 93-97 (1997). Degreef knew nothing about the discovery of 1963 and wrote in 1997 that it was "very improbable that leaf fossils from Aldrovanda will ever be found" ( "very improbable that leaf fossils from Aldrovanda will ever be found" ).
Web links
- Jan Schlauer: Fossil Aldrovanda - Additions , in: Carnivorous Plant Newsletter, 26 (3): 98, PDF Online