The Oldest Known Ant Specimen Held Its Prey With Weird Mandibles, Researchers Claim

When you think of predators, you probably imagine sharp nails or tooth -teeth large animals like tigers or sharks. 3 million years ago, however, a little bit of a strange horrible hunter persuaded his victim with a jaw like Skyth.

While investigating a large collection of fossil insects at the Zoology Museum of Sao Paulo University, Brazil researchers realized that an 113 million -year -old fossil represents a new ants species, and it can be the oldest ants known to science. Valcanidris Cretains is the fossil ants subfamili member of extinct ants HydomirmecinaThe Appropriately “hell ant” dubs dubbed hydomirmecina ants during the time Cretaceous period (1 million to million 66 million years ago) and known to Paleonologists for their naughty and highly specialized jaws.

“Our team has discovered a new fossil ants, representing the early undisitted geological records of ants,” Anderson Lepco, a researcher at the zoology museum of the University of Sao Paulo, said in a cell press. StatementThe “This discovery makes it especially interesting is the extinct ‘hell ants’, known for their bizarre hunter adaptations” “

Lepeko co-authored Study Details of the invention published on Thursday in the current biology journal. He and his colleagues studied the Helle Ant of the limestone through a 3D imaging technique called micro-Commited tomography, which published the interior of the object. According to their analysis, the ants were impressive mandibles (parts of the mouth) that proceeded parallel to the size of the head in front of the eye, which was probably used to pin the victim. In contrast, the mandibles on modern ants move the side.

Lepco explained, “Finding this physically specialized ants from 3 million years ago challenged our hypothesis that these insects developed quickly developed,” Lepco explained. “It has been advisable to complicate complex complications that even these early ants already developed significantly sophisticated predatory techniques from their modern parts.”

Furthermore, researchers have reached the conclusion that the sample was closely related to the hell species that were previously discovered in Myanmar’s ambus. Since Volcanidris Cretains came CrawlA fossil hot-spot-spot-spot-spot-spot of northeast Brazil suggests that hydomirmessini ants have already spread all over the world.

Lepco added, “When I face this extraordinary sample, we immediately recognize the significance of the ants not only as a new species, but also as a potential proof of ants in the formation of croat,” added Lepco. “This looking for existing collections – in private or museums – highlights the importance of the entire exam and brings a spotlight to the Brazilian Paleonology and the country’s unexpected fossil insects.”

The study finally reveals that ants are already varied and expanded around the world 113 million years ago, focusing on evolution PestThe