Mimicry of mantis and Selaginella from Cretaceous provides new evidence for the deep-time co-evolution of insects and plants.

Mimicry between insects and plants represents sophisticated survival strategies. Their long-term evolutionary interactions led to mutual adaptation, creating a complex ecological symbiosis. However, the deep-time ecological associations of mimicry between insects and plants remain limited due to the scarcity of preserved fossils. Here, we report the fossil evidences of mimicry between praying mantis and spike mosses in 98-Myr-old Kachin amber. The new Cretaceous mantis, Folimantis hyalinala gen. et sp. nov., has a rare form of leaf mimicry via abdominal leaf-shaped extensions that resemble contemporaneous vegetative leaves (trophophylls) of Selaginella in shape, size, and pattern of arrangement. The new findings provide the earliest direct evidence of the co-associations between mantis and its mimetic plants during the Cretaceous and suggest that the stem-group had already developed distinct structural features that mimic plant leaves during the early divergences of Mantodea. A diversification analysis of mimicry between fossil insects and plants from the Late Paleozoic and Mesozoic indicates that, before the rise of angiosperms in the Late Cretaceous, mimicry between insects and gymnosperms, ferns, lichens, and even Selaginella had existed for a long time and that changes in mimicry forms paralleled the evolutionary succession of plant lineages.