Fine Wasp Insect Fossil from Yixian Formation

Yixian Formation in Liaoning Province in northeast China has remained one of the hottest paleontology study sites on earth the past two decades. The Yixian Formation is perhaps most famous for discoveries of feathered dinosaurs. From feathered dinosaurs to birds to reptiles with color patterns, the fine lake silts of Liaoning preserved the most intricate of life from more than 100 million years ago. Relatively hard to preserve insects are well represented in the diverse Liaoning biota.

This Hymenopteran fossil is a wasp with many fine details preserved. The Hymenoptera appeared in the Triassic, though their social behavior only began in the Cretaceous. The sociality of Hymenopterans is the subject of research using the new high-throughput molecular technologies. The wasps, bees, and ants together comprise suborder Apocrita, with the principal diagnostic feature being constriction between the first and second abdominal segments called a "wasp-waist" (called a petiole)