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| Herzlich Willkommen! > Gladiator National Museum Namibia |
Gladiator National Museum Namibia
Die namibische Darstellung zur Entdeckung der Mantophasmatodea ("Gladiators"): Mitteilung des National Museum, Windhoek (http://www.natmus.cul.na) - Stand Juni 2002.
For the first time in 87 years scientists have found insects which cannot be allocated to any known insect order. They appear to related to the stick insects and mantises and have been given the scientific name of Mantophasmatodea. The new insect order were described in the 25th May 2002 edition of Science. Oliver Zompro, a doctoral student at the Max-Planck-Institute for Limnology in Pl�, Germany, discovered this life form in a 45-million-year-old piece of amber and other pieces of amber from various European museums, and later found that it may still be extant as various museums had species collected during the 20th century. An international expedition of entomologists from Germany, England, South Africa, Namibia and the USA subsequently discovered living populations on the Brandberg mountain and elsewhere in Namibia. These predatory animals from the Brandberg were nicknamed "Gladiator". According to Piotr Naskrecki, director of the "Invertebrate Diversity Initiative" in the species protection organisation, "Conservation International", this discovery is akin to "finding a mammoth or a sabre-toothed tiger today". This new order, christened Mantophasmatodea, brings the number of insect orders known throughout the world to 31. Insects represent over 80 % of all living animals on earth with over 1.2 million known species. Every year numerous new species are found and categorised. But the last time a new insect order was discovered was in 1915, 87 years ago. The discovery In June 2001, when visiting the British Natural History Museum in London, Oliver Zompro was shown a spiny insect that had been collected in 1950 in Tanzania. Roy Danielsson had sent it 16 years earlier from the University Museum in Lund/Sweden to be identified. The similarity of the Tanzanian specimen with the fossils in Baltic amber was obvious. During July 2001 Zompro located a similar-looking adult female in unidentified stick-insect material in the Berlin Museum for Natural History that originated from Namibia at the beginning of the 20th century. Analysis of the recent museum specimens proved to represent a new insect order - the first since the discovery of Zoraptera in 1913 and the Grylloblattodea (= Notoptera) in 1915. A German postdoctoral scholarship-holder, Dr. Klaus-Dieter KLASS, and Prof. Dr. Niels Peder KRISTENSEN, both from the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen, investigated the structure (morphology, anatomy) and described how the animal is distinct from previously known insect orders. Their detailed examinations confirm without any doubt that the animal represents a previously unknown insect order. However, its exact position within the system of insects has not yet been clarified. The species from the Lund University and Berlin Natural History museums represent the genus Mantophasma (body length up to 2.5 cm), the animals in amber the genus Raptophasma (body length 1.5 cm). There were approximately 40 eggs in the abdomen of the female from Namibia which was cAonserved in alcohol (Museum for Natural History, Berlin). Initial electron microscopic investigations of their surface structure, carried out by Joachim Adis at the Max-Planck-Institute for Limnology, indicate that they are supplied with air under water in the event of temporary flooding, i.e. they are submersion-resistant by means of "plastron respiration" and/or they have a high level of resistance to desiccation. Cuticular remains of other insects were found in the intestines of this female, which, as in the case of the species conserved in amber, indicate a predatory diet. Rows of spines on the front and middle legs indicate that the animal held on to its prey with its legs, as some insect-eating locusts (Orthoptera) do. A more detailed description of the new insect order "Mantophasmatodea" will appear in the autumn in the journal "Zoologischer Anzeiger". At the end of the year a German account will be published in a new edition of a standard German entomological work, "K�tner - Lehrbuch der Speziellen Zoologie". Joachim Adis sent photographs of the two animals found in museums to scientists and museums around the world, with the request for searches in collections for further material. Eug�e Marais, National Museum in Windhoek, sent the researchers information about two similar-looking animals that had been found in Namibia in 1990 and 2001. The two specimens were sent to Pl� and represented two further new species of a third new genus and, at the same time, confirmed that representatives of the new insect order had survived to the present day - over a period of at least 45 million years. Research expedition to the Brandberg A scientific expedition took place from 28th February to 19th March 2002 on the Brandberg mountain in Erongo region. The expedition used the information provided by Martin Wittneben to search for and develop ecological information on the species occurring there, not yet described - working name "Gladiator", so called because of its similarity to the armoured fighters in the film of the same name. It was known that the species occurred at other localities on the Brandberg too as Kathy MEAKIN, a doctoral student at the University of Leeds, England, collected several specimens during a standardized survey of the insect diversity of the Brandberg. Kathy Meakin's research project (supervisor Prof. Roger BUTLIN) was part of a biodiversity survey on the Brandberg initiated by the National Museum of Namibia, Windhoek Museum and the School of Biology, University of Leeds, with extensive logistical support provided by Raleigh International, a UK-based youth development programme (see website www.natmus.cul.na/daures ). The main part of that research programme was carried out between 1998 Aand 2000, and the results obtained from the survey were analysed by more than 50 scientists from all over the world. The information developed during the Brandberg survey, combined with natural history information contributed by other scientists, resulted in proving that the nearly 2,600 m high inselberg is of considerable environmental interest, for example resulting in the first Afrotropical representatives of a beetle tribe occurring primarily in the New World. The Brandberg is world-renowned for its unique concentration of rock art and is a Namibian Monuments Area, and will be proposed for UNESCO's World Heritage programme based on the combination of its unique natural history and cultural values. The area may be entered only with permission, which is particularly important for the protection of the new insect order from bio-piracy. The international team was successful in finding living animals during the March 2002 expedition, not only on the Brandberg, but also in relocating living populations of the type species of the order, Mantophasma zephyra. Some live "Gladiators" collected on the Brandberg and also Mantophasma zephyra adults were relocated to the climate chambers of the Max-Planck-Institute for Limnology. First DNA analyses are already being undertaken in the molecular biology laboratories of the University of Leeds in England (Prof. R. BUTLIN) and Brigham Young University in Provo, USA (Dr. M.F. WHITING), in order to clarify the exact position of the Mantophasmatodea order in the insect family tree. Original publications: Kirk-Spriggs, A.H & Marais, E. (eds.) 2000. D�res - Biodiversity of the Brandberg Massif, Namibia. Cimbebabsia Memoir 9, Windhoek. ISBN 0-86976-560-4. Klass, K.-D., Zompro, O., Kristensen, N. P. & Adis, J. 2002. Mantophasmatodea: a new insect order with extant members in the AfrotropiAcs. Science, 18. April 2002. Lenssen-Erz, T. & Erz, M.-T. 2000. Brandberg - der Bilderberg Namibias. Jan Thorbecke Verlag, ISBN 3-7995-9030-7. Zompro, O. 2001. The Phasmatodea and Raptophasma n.gen., Orthoptera incertae sedis, in Baltic amber (Insecta: Orthoptera). Mitt. Geol.-Pal�nt. Inst. Univ. Hamburg 85: 229-261. Zompro, O., Adis, J. & Weitschat, W. 2002. A review of the Order Mantophasmatodea Information in the Internet: Videoclip available via: |
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