One almost forgotten fossil, discovered in a museum collection in Brazil revealed the most old copy of ant known to science according to a new research.
The prehistoric ant lived among the dinosaurs 113 million years ago-several millennia before the species found earlier-and had an unusual way to kill their prey.
Anderson Lepeco, a researcher at the University of São Paulo Zoology Museum, said he found the “extraordinary” specimen in September 2024 while examining a collection of fossils stored in the museum itself.
The museum has one of the largest collections of fossilized insects in the world and houses specimens from Crato formation in northeastern Brazil – a geological deposit famous for its exceptional preservation of fossils.
Preserved in limestone, the newly described extinct insect is what is known as an “ant ant”, a member of a subfamily called Haidomymecinae, who lived during the Cretaceous period, between 66 million and 45 million years ago, and is not related to any live today, according to a study published on Thursday (24) at (24) at Current Magazine Biology.
The fossil species, named Vulcanidris Cratensis, had sickle -like jaws, which he probably used to arrest or impair his prey.
“I was shocked to see that strange projection in front of this head [inseto]”Said Lepeco, the main author of the study.” Other hell ants had already been described with unusual jaws, but always as specimens preserved in amber. “
It is rare to find insects preserved in rock. Other ants from the Cretaceous period hell were found preserved in amber of France and Myanmar, but date from about 99 million years.
The fact that an ant of hell was already living before that, in what today is Brazil, indicates that these insects have been widely distributed throughout the planet since the early stages of their evolution, according to the study’s authors.
The discovery shed light on how ants evolved during the beginning of the Cretaceous, a period of significant changes. It also offers clues about unusual characteristics of species of this period that did not survive the mass extinction that ended the era of dinosaurs, the researchers said.
Lost anatomical characteristics in time
Today, ants are one of the most visible and abundant insect groups on the planet found on all continents, except in Antarctica, as pointed out by the study.
However, they were not always dominant. They evolved at the end of the Jurassic and Beginning period of the Cretaceous, about 145 million years ago, when the ants of ants separated from the same group that gave rise to wasps and bees.
Only after the impact of the asteroid that led dinosaurs and other species to extinction, 66 million years ago, ants became the most common insects found in the fossil record, according to the study.
The fossil is a “great discovery,” said Phil Barden, an associate professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology who studies the evolutionary history of insects.
“This new discovery now represents the oldest known ant, extending the fossil record known in about ten million years,” said Barden, who did not participate in the study by email.
“Although ant fossils have been described since the nineteenth century … So far, it was unclear if their absence over 100 million years was due to the fact that they did not exist or simply not preserved in the deposits where people sought,” he added.
The newly identified species also had some characteristics similar to the wasps, which indicates the common ancestry between the two groups. For example, ant wings were much more veins than current ants, Lepeco said.
Images made with computed microtomography – a 3D image technique that uses x -ray to view the interior of the ant – revealed that the insect was closely related to other hell ants known only by Burmese amber fossils.
What caught the most attention in the ant was its unusual anatomical characteristics. Modern ants have jaws that close laterally – from side to side. However, this ant had a sickle -shaped jaws that projected forward, parallel to the head and close to their eyes, the researchers described in the study.
“It could function as a kind of forklift, moving up,” Lepeco explained by email as he described how the ant hunted other extinct insects.
“Intricted morphology suggests that even these older ants had already developed sophisticated predatory strategies, significantly different from those of their modern counterparts,” Lepeco concluded.
Remember: Paleontologist finds prehistoric crocodile fossil
Species of wolf extinguished 12,000 years ago is “recreated”; understand
This content was originally published in a collection forgotten in a collection in Brazil reveals an oldest ant known on CNN Brazil.
Source: CNN Brasil
Charles Grill is a tech-savvy writer with over 3 years of experience in the field. He writes on a variety of technology-related topics and has a strong focus on the latest advancements in the industry. He is connected with several online news websites and is currently contributing to a technology-focused platform.
