Ecdysozoa is a clade composed of eight phyla: the arthropods, tardigrades and onychophorans that share segmentation and appendages and the nematodes, nematomorphs, priapulids, kinorhynchs and loriciferans, which are worms with an anterior proboscis or introvert. Ecdysozoa contains the vast majority of animal species and there is a great diversity of body plans among both living and fossil membe...

Pollination by insects is essential to many ecosystems. Previously, we have shown that floral scent is important to mediate pollen transfer between plants (Kessler et al., 2015). Yet, the mechanisms by which pollinators evaluate volatiles of single flowers remained unclear. Here, Nicotiana attenuata plants, in which floral volatiles have been genetically silenced and its hawkmoth pollinator, Ma...

Soluble, low molecular weight proteins were immunodetected in proboscis extracts of Mamestra brassicae males by Western blot, using antibodies raised against the general odorant-binding protein of the moth Antheraea polyphemus. The same antibodies weakly labelled the sensillum lymph and subcuticular space of sensilla styloconica on ultrathin sections of the proboscis. The morphology of sensilla...

Cambrian lobopodians are important for understanding the evolution of arthropods, but despite their soft-bodied preservation, the organization of the cephalic region remains obscure. Here we describe new material of the early Cambrian lobopodian Onychodictyon ferox from southern China, which reveals hitherto unknown head structures. These include a proboscis with a terminal mouth, an anterior a...

Neoechinorhynchus (Neoechinorhynchus) zabensis sp. n. (Acanthocephala: Neoechinorhynchidae) is described from Capoeta damascina (Valenciennes, 1842) (type host) and Capoeta trutta (Heckel, 1843) in the Greater and Lesser Zab Rivers, northern Iraq. The new species is unique among all other species of the genus by its characteristic paired para-vaginal muscular appendage and fragmented giant nucl...