Evidence of plant–insect interaction in the Early Cretaceous Flora from the Crato Formation, Araripe Basin, Northeast Brazil

AbstractThe analysis of insect-plant interaction can be provide paleoecological and paleoenvironmental important data for understanding the co-evolution between plants and insects. Since the appearance of the first evidence of leaves damaged by insects, these organisms have evolved together. In the Araripe Basin, the Crato Formation stands out by having abundance and diversity of fossils species of plants and insects. In this work they are documented interaction records in specimens of ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms, showing a wide variety of types of interactions. Here we analyze 56 fossil specimens from the collections of the Museum of Paleontology and the Laboratory of Paleontology of the Universidade Regional do Cariri. The types of damage identified in this study is insect galls, leaf margin feeding (herbivory), leaf mines, oviposition of insects and skeletonization, which are present in 19 specimens. This analysis in search for evidences of plant–insect interaction contributes with new interacti...