99-million-year-old bug hints that flowers once had very different pollinators

When we think of pollinators, bees, butterflies, and hoverflies usually spring to mind. Rarely do we imagine true bugs dusted in pollen. Yet a stunning 99-million-year-old fossil of a bug, Shaykayatcoris michalskii, suggests our mental picture of who carried pollen through ancient flowers needs an update.

Hungarian researchers studying a pristine inclusion in Burmese amber identified a flat bug, preserved with plant fragments and a halo of pollen grains. The specimen comes from Late Cretaceous amber formed on the West Burma terrane.

This fragment of crust split from Gondwana more than 100 million years earlier and drifted in the tropical Tethys.

Isolated for eons, life on the terrane evolved along a distinctive path, and its amber famously preserved delicate organisms in extraordinary detail.

Unexpected bug pollinator

Shaykayatcoris michalskii belongs to the flat bug family Aradidae, best known today as cryptic, bark-hugging fungi feeders.

Yet this individual, assigned to the subfamily Prosympiestinae, breaks the mold in multiple ways.

The species is the first representative of that ancient lineage ever reported from Burmese amber. Previously, all aradids from this deposit came from more derived branches of the family.

Even more striking is its appearance: the exoskeleton is iridescent, flashing a metallic sheen never before documented in flat bugs.

Prosympiestinae differ in lifestyle and form from their pancake-flat, bark-dwelling relatives.

Rather than being pressed thin to slip beneath tree bark, they tend to have more cylindrical bodies and inhabit leaf litter or the undersides of fallen logs and branches.

That departure from a strictly subcortical existence may have opened opportunities – like venturing onto flowers – that typical flat bugs rarely seize today.

Shaykayatcoris michalskii was shiny

Iridescence in insects can serve several functions. Brilliant warning colors can advertise toxicity.

Shaykayatcoris, however, shows a brownish base tone with a subtle shimmer, not the bold reds and oranges linked to aposematism.

Camouflage is the more likely explanation here. On petals, an iridescent gloss can fracture outlines and mimic the shifting play of light on floral surfaces.

It helps an insect like Shaykayatcoris michalskii blend in among gleaming pollen and reflective nectar guides. In that context, shimmering armor would be less a billboard than a cloak.

Dust points to flowers

The most persuasive clue to this bug’s floral life comes from its microscopic companions. Alongside plant fragments, abundant pollen surrounds the insect inside the amber, with grains even adhering to the body.

Because resin entombs scenes in mid-action, the association is unlikely to be accidental.

Coupled with the iridescent finish, the pollen dusting points to regular flower visits and, by extension, a role – perhaps incidental, perhaps important – in pollination.

That inference matters because modern true bugs rarely rank among primary pollinators.

Today’s flowering plants largely rely on bees, butterflies, moths, and flies, whose mouthparts and foraging habits are specialized for nectar and pollen.

This fossil suggests that, earlier in Earth’s history, some bugs occupied that niche more frequently than they do now. Competition and coevolution later favored the classic pollinator guilds we recognize today.

Bug fossil fills missing gap

Flat bugs are typically masters of concealment. They live under bark, graze fungal hyphae with elongated stylets coiled inside their heads, and wear muted colors that melt into wood grain.

Finding an aradid with a reflective finish is startling on its own; finding it in a lineage that retains ancestral traits and in one of the world’s most storied amber deposits magnifies the surprise.

The discovery fills a conspicuous gap in the Burmese amber fauna by documenting an older aradid lineage where only more derived ones had been seen.

Burmese amber is a magnet for paleobiologists precisely because it preserves what rock often erases: hairs on fly legs, pollen clumps, and the fine sculpturing of exoskeletons.

Arthropods, with their delicate cuticles and appendages, are especially prone to being flattened or fragmented in sedimentary fossils.

Resin captures them mid-gesture, with spores, dust, and pollen revealing behaviors that bones and impressions cannot.

Rethinking bug pollinators

If true bugs frequented flowers in the Cretaceous, the implications ripple through our view of angiosperm evolution.

Early flowering plants diversified at the same time as many insect groups, and their mutual influences shaped floral structures and insect mouthparts.

A broader cast of pollinators – one that included iridescent aradids – could help explain certain floral traits that don’t neatly match bee or butterfly syndromes.

It suggests that as bees rose, many bug lineages abandoned flowers to better-equipped pollinators.

The study, led by Eötvös Loránd University, demonstrates how competition and environmental change filter ecosystems over deep time.

What looks “typical” today – bees buzzing between blossoms while true bugs skulk under bark – might be a late chapter rather than the opening scene.

By showing that bugs once mingled more often with flowers, the fossil nudges us to see present-day patterns as the outcome of shifting pressures rather than fixed rules.

Lessons from Shaykayatcoris michalskii

Beyond rewriting a small piece of floral history, the find has contemporary resonance.

Global pollinator declines threaten crop yields and wild plant reproduction, prompting urgent searches for overlooked or understudied pollinators across landscapes.

Fossils like Shaykayatcoris michalskii remind us that pollination networks can be more diverse and flexible than we assume, and that marginal or rare visitors might become important under different conditions.

Understanding how ancient communities shared pollination helps refine our expectations and conservation priorities as today’s ecosystems are reshaped.

In a single shard of amber, a shimmering bug and its cloud of pollen grains expand our imagination of who carried Cretaceous pollen.

They also invite us to look more closely at the quiet, easily missed participants in the modern pollination story.

The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

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