Cretaceous lacewing larvae with binocular vision demonstrate the convergent evolution of sophisticated simple eyes.

ABSTRACT: Many insects and their relatives are renowned for sophisticated compound eyes, which are also preserved in the fossil record. Yet there are other types of eyes, notably the so-called stemmata of holometabolans, such as beetles, bees, and butterflies. Stemmata are not as effective as compound eyes, except in some predatory larvae. Here we report three lacewing larvae with large forward-directed stemmata from Cretaceous Kachin amber, Myanmar. The stemmata are large relative to those of other fossil lacewing larvae, comparable to the simple eyes of modern larvae capable of image formation. The head is very wide in one larva, representing a new type of morphology as demonstrated by a quantitative comparison of the head and stylets of over 400 fossil and extant lacewing larvae. The arrangement

SUBMITTER: Haug C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12905476 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature