Extinct hell ant species used specialized jaws to impale its prey
Now, a team in Brazil has uncovered a 113-million-year-old hell ant that represents the oldest hell ant specimen known to science. The ant was preserved in limestone and is described in a study published April 24 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology.
'Our team has discovered a new fossil ant species representing the earliest undisputable geological record of ants,' Anderson Lepeco, a study co-author and paleontologist from the Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo, said in a statement. 'What makes this discovery particularly interesting is that it belongs to the extinct 'hell ant,' known for their bizarre predatory adaptations. Despite being part of an ancient lineage, this species already displayed highly specialized anatomical features, suggesting unique hunting behaviors.'
According to the team, the existence of a hell ant in Brazil shows that the insects were already widely distributed around the world and diversified sometime early in their evolution.
Previously, the oldest hell ants were found in Burma and France and were preserved in amber–Jurassic Park style–instead of limestone.
'Even though there have been hell ants described from amber, this was the first time we could visualize this in a rock fossil,' said Lepeco.
The team found the 'remarkably well-preserved' ant specimen while systematically examining a large collection of fossil insects from the Crato Formation. This deposit in northeastern Brazil is known for exceptional fossil preservation and is housed at the Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo.
[ Related: Even ants may hold grudges. ]
'When I encountered this extraordinary specimen, we immediately recognized its significance, not only as a new species but as potentially the definitive evidence of ants in the Crato Formation,' said Lepeco. 'This finding highlights the importance of thorough examination of existing collections—private or in museums—and brings a spotlight to Brazilian paleontology and the underexplored fossil insect fauna of the country.'
To take a closer look at the ancient insect, the team used micro-computed tomography imaging. This 3D imaging technique deploys X-rays to view the inside of a specimen. The imaging showed that this newly discovered ant was closely related to hell ants that were known only from specimens preserved in a type of amber found in Myanmar called Burmese amber. Seeing a hell ant preserved in limestone so far away from Burma indicates that these ants were widely distributed and likely crossed Cretaceous landmasses several times. But what excited the team most was the hell ant's specialized features.
'While we expected to find hell ant features, we were shocked by the characteristics of its feeding apparatus,' said Lepeco.
Modern ants typically have lateral moving mandibles. Instead, this species had mandibles that ran forward parallel to the head and facial projection closer to its eyes.
'Finding such an anatomically specialized ant from 113 million years ago challenges our assumptions about how quickly these insects developed complex adaptations,' said Lepeco. 'The intricate morphology suggests that even these earliest ants had already evolved sophisticated predatory strategies significantly different from their modern counterparts.'
As with most fossil discoveries, this new specimen raises some broader questions about what evolutionary pressures led to the hell ant's unique adaptations. Further study with advanced imaging tools could unlock millions of years of secrets.
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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Biomechanics study shows how T. rex and other dinosaurs fed on prey
By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Tyrannosaurus subdued prey with raw power, using bone-crushing bite force. But other meat-eating dinosaurs that rivaled T. rex in size used different approaches. Giganotosaurus relied more on slashing and ripping flesh. And the long and narrow snout of Spinosaurus was well-adapted for catching fish. Researchers have documented the feeding biomechanics of meat-eating dinosaurs in a comprehensive analysis of the skull design and bite force of 17 species that prowled the landscape at various times from the dawn to the twilight of the age of dinosaurs. The study found that Tyrannosaurus possessed by far the highest estimated bite force, with a heavily reinforced skull and massive jaw muscles. But it showed that other dinosaur predators evolved successful approaches to bringing down prey even without matching the T. rex chomp. "We found that large predatory dinosaurs didn't all evolve the same kind of skull to deal with the challenges of feeding at massive size," said vertebrate paleontologist Andre Rowe of the University of Bristol in England, lead author of the study published this month in the journal Current Biology. "Some, like T. rex, reinforced the skull to tolerate extremely high bite forces and the associated skull stresses. Others, like Allosaurus or Spinosaurus, went with lighter or possibly flexible builds that spread out stress in different ways. There's no single 'correct' way to be a giant meat-eater, and that's the point," Rowe added. The study focused on species within the group, or clade, called theropods that includes the meat-eating dinosaurs. They ran from Herrerasaurus, which lived in Argentina about 230 million years ago and is one of the earliest-known dinosaurs, all the way to T. rex, which was present in western North America when an asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago and ended the age of dinosaurs. The researchers used three-dimensional models of the skulls of the 17 species, including two different specimens of Tyrannosaurus, and applied a method for simulating how structures respond to physical stress. They estimated muscle forces using digital muscle reconstructions based on living relatives of the dinosaurs - birds and crocodiles - then applied those forces to the skull models to simulate bites. "Our focus wasn't raw bite force. We were testing how the skulls distributed that force under load, and how these distributions varied by each lineage of carnivores," Rowe said. The early theropods examined in the study such as Herrerasaurus, which lived during the middle of the Triassic Period, and Dilophosaurus, which lived early in the Jurassic Period, exhibited much lower stress resistance than their later counterparts. They were lightly built dinosaurs and not well adapted to high bite forces, Rowe said. The increase in bite force and skull strength unfolded gradually over time, reaching its apex with Tyrannosaurus and its close relatives in a lineage called tyrannosaurs such as Daspletosaurus and Albertosaurus, which like T. rex appeared late in the Cretaceous Period. "In tyrannosaurs, there's a big jump in skull strength and bite mechanics, coinciding with deeper skulls, more robust bone architecture and changes in jaw muscle attachment. So the ramp-up wasn't immediate. It evolved over time and in certain lineages more than others," Rowe said. Tyrannosaurus, Giganotosaurus and Spinosaurus were three of the largest theropods, but their skulls were quite different. Perhaps the largest-known Tyrannosaurus is a specimen named Sue at the Field Museum in Chicago, at 40-1/2 feet (12.3 meters) long. Giganotosaurus and Spinosaurus rivaled T. rex in size. Giganotosaurus lived in Argentina in the middle of the Cretaceous, while Spinosaurus inhabited North Africa at around the same time, both predating Tyrannosaurus by roughly 30 million years. "Giganotosaurus was large, but its skull wasn't built for the same kind of high-force feeding as T. rex. Spinosaurus had a long, narrow snout, which is consistent with a diet focused on fishing, though we have fossilized evidence that it ate other animals, such as pterosaurs," Rowe said, referring to the flying reptiles that were cousins of the dinosaurs. One of the key takeaway messages, Rowe said, is that giant body size did not funnel all theropods toward the same design. Stronger bite force was one strategy, but not the only one, Rowe added. "Some animals win with raw power, others by striking quickly or repeatedly. What we're seeing here is a spectrum of ecological adaptations. These animals weren't all trying to be T. rex clones. They were solving the same problem in different ways," Rowe added. "That kind of evolutionary flexibility," Rowe added, "probably helped them dominate ecosystems for so long." Solve the daily Crossword
Scientific American
2 days ago
- Scientific American
This Company Claimed to ‘De-extinct' Dire Wolves. Then the Fighting Started
For months, researchers in a laboratory in Dallas, Texas, worked in secrecy, culturing grey-wolf blood cells and altering the DNA within. The scientists then plucked nuclei from these gene-edited cells and injected them into egg cells from a domestic dog to form clones. They transferred dozens of the cloned embryos into the wombs of surrogate dogs, eventually bringing into the world three animals of a type that had never been seen before. Two males named Romulus and Remus were born in October 2024, and a female, Khaleesi, was born in January. A few months later, Colossal Biosciences, the Texas-based company that produced the creatures, declared: 'The first de-extinct animals are here.' Of 20 edits made to the animals' genomes, the company says that 15 match sequences identified in dire wolves (Aenocyon dirus), a large-bodied wolf species that last roamed North America during the ice age that ended some 11,500 years ago. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. The company's announcement of the pups in April, which described them as dire wolves, set off a media maelstrom. The ensuing debates over the nature of the animals — and the advisability of doing such work — have opened a chasm between Colossal's team and other scientists. 'I don't think they de-extincted anything,' says Jeanne Loring, a stem-cell biologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. She and many others say that the hype surrounding Colossal's announcement has the potential to confuse the public about what de-extinction technologies can achieve. Colossal, meanwhile, has taken an increasingly combative tone in addressing criticisms, issuing rapid rebuttals to researchers and conservationists who have publicly questioned the company's work. The firm has also been accused of taking part in a campaign to undermine the credibility of some critics. The company denies having played any part in this. Colossal stands by its claims and insists that it is listening to dissenters and seeking advice from them. 'We have had this attitude of running towards critics, not away,' says Ben Lamm, a technology entrepreneur and co-founder of the company. Colossal ambitions De-extinction is an emerging field that represents the meeting point of several groundbreaking biotechnologies: ancient genomics, cloning and genome editing, ostensibly in the service of conservation. The field has roots in science fiction, with the term seeming first to have appeared in a 1979 novel by Piers Anthony called The Source of Magic. And Michael Crichton's 1990 novel Jurassic Park — itself inspired by ancient-DNA investigations — popularized the possibility that long-dead organisms could be cloned from preserved DNA. There has never been perfect agreement on what counts as de-extinction — such as whether it means cloning exact replicas of extinct species, creating proxies that fulfil their roles in ecosystems, or something in between. Some count the birth of a cloned bucardo (Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica), a type of wild goat, as a first example. The animal's genome was transferred into goat (Capra hircus) egg cells from frozen cell samples taken from one of the last living bucardo specimens in 2000. (The resulting creature died within minutes of birth.) But this pathway to de-extinction isn't an option for most species. DNA degrades over time, and without a sample of carefully preserved DNA, researchers would have to engineer the whole genome. The advent of CRISPR–Cas9 genome editing in 2012 provided another option. Researchers can identify genetic variants that contribute to key traits of extinct animals and edit these variants into cells of living relatives. They can then use that manipulated DNA to create a new animal through cloning. Plans to bring back animals such as the passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) and the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) began to flourish. Even though there was interest among researchers and the public, funding was an issue. 'We had been unable to get really any philanthropic interest in de-extinction,' says Ben Novak, who leads a passenger-pigeon de-extinction effort at the non-profit organization Revive & Restore in Sausalito, California. But in 2021, geneticist George Church at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, who was working with Revive & Restore, caught a break. He teamed up with Lamm to launch Colossal Biosciences with US$15 million in funding, much of which came from venture capitalists. De-extinction of the woolly mammoth would be the firm's flagship project, using elephants as surrogates. Beth Shapiro, an evolutionary geneticist who is chief scientific officer at Colossal, was initially sceptical that there was a strong conservation argument for creating elephants that had key mammoth traits. In 2015, she told Nature that her book on de-extinction, called How To Clone A Mammoth, might have been more accurately titled 'How One Might Go About Cloning a Mammoth (Should It Become Technically Possible, And If It Were, In Fact, a Good Idea, Which It's Probably Not)'. Shapiro turned down an offer to join the company at first, but started seriously entertaining the idea when Colossal expanded its de-extinction ambitions. It began projects to bring back the dodo (Raphus cucullatus), which was wiped out in the seventeenth century, and to restore thylacines (Thylacinus cynocephalus), the Australian marsupials that are sometimes referred to as Tasmanian tigers and that were hunted to extinction in the 1930s. She was especially interested in seeing de-extinction technologies applied to existing endangered species. Shapiro joined Colossal in 2024 as its chief scientist. 'This is an opportunity to scale up the impact that I have the potential to make,' she says. 'Maybe it's a mid-life crisis.' The company, now valued at around US$10 billion, has attracted celebrity investors, including the media personality Paris Hilton and film director Peter Jackson, alongside a handful of leading scientists as staff and advisers. Dire disagreements The dire-wolf project was different from many of Colossal's other efforts because it proceeded quietly. Few people knew about the work until this year, and that irked some researchers. 'They didn't invite any kind of conversation about whether or not that is a good use of funds or a good project to do,' says Novak. Shapiro says the secrecy around the dire-wolf project was designed to generate surprise, and to counter public perceptions that the company overpromises and under-delivers. She also says that the company talked extensively to scientists, conservationists and others about the project and how it should proceed. The firm has not released the full list of edits that it made — 20 changes to 14 genome locations. Fifteen of the changes were identified in two dire-wolf genomes obtained from the remains of animals that lived 13,000 and 72,000 years ago. The genome differs from that of the grey wolf (Canis lupus) by about 12 million DNA letters. Colossal says that other edits, including changes that led to the creatures' white coats and contributed to their large size, were intended to replicate dire-wolf traits using gene variants found in grey wolves. Many scientists say that the coat colour in particular was probably inspired more by the animals' appearance in the fantasy television series Game of Thrones than by reality. 'There is no chance in hell a dire wolf is going to look like that,' says Tom Gilbert, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Copenhagen and a scientific adviser to Colossal. He says he agrees with other scientists who have argued that, on the basis of what is known about the dire wolf's range, it 'basically would have looked like a slightly larger coyote'. Colossal notes that the coat colour is based on the discovery of variants in two dire-wolf genomes that it says would have resulted in light-coloured fur. According to an update from Colossal in late June, Romulus and Remus weigh around 40 kilograms, around 20% heavier than a standard grey wolf of the same age, and Khaleesi is about 16 kilograms. They live on an 800-hectare ecological preserve surrounded by a 3-metre wall. Colossal plans to make more of the animals, and to study their health and development in depth. It says it will not release them into the wild. Shapiro argued in her 2015 book that forming a wild population is a requirement for successful de-extinction. She nevertheless considers the dire wolves to be an example of de-extinction, and says that creating them will have conservation benefits for wolves and other species. Many scientists disagree. A group of experts on canids that advises the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) issued a statement in mid-April rejecting Colossal's claim that gene-edited wolves could be considered dire wolves, or even proxies for the extinct species. The statement cites a 2016 IUCN definition for de-extinction that emphasizes that the animal must fill an ecological niche. The work, the group said, 'may demonstrate technical capabilities, but it does not contribute to conservation'. Colossal has disputed this on the social-media platform X (formerly Twitter) saying that the dire-wolf project 'develops vital conservation technologies and provides an ideal platform for the next stage of this research'. Novak says: 'The dire wolf fits the Jurassic Park model of de-extinction beautifully.' The animals have the traits of extinct species and are, to his knowledge, not intended for release into the wild, he says. 'It is clearly for spectacle.' Gilbert, who was a co-author of a preprint describing the ancient dire-wolf genomes, says he is concerned that Colossal is not being sufficiently clear to the public about what it has done. 'It's a dog with 20 edits,' he says. 'If you're putting out descriptions that are going to be so easily falsified, the risk is you do damage to science's reputation.' Lamm rejects the idea that Colossal's messaging undermines public credibility in science, pointing to what he says was an overwhelmingly positive reaction. Loring, who is part of an effort to use stem-cell technology in conservation, says that she sees merit in Colossal's work. It has, she says, changed her views on how to repopulate northern white rhinoceroses (Ceratotherium simum cottoni). But she worries that Colossal's messaging overshadows those contributions. 'It may create an opportunity for us to educate the public,' she says. 'More often, it creates an opportunity for us to be ignored.' To Love Dalén, a palaeogeneticist at the University of Stockholm and a scientific adviser to Colossal, the controversy is 'a storm in a teacup' that detracts from Colossal's achievement. 'It makes me a little bit sad there is this huge debate and angry voices about the common name,' he says. Dogfight Shapiro says she was surprised and saddened by the strength of reactions to Colossal's announcement. 'It was harder than I thought it would be, and the questions were getting meaner and meaner,' she says. But she and Colossal were quick to respond. 'Some of y'all are real mad about this,' she began in a video posted on X in April. 'You can call these animals proxy dire wolves or Colossal's dire wolves. All of that would be correct. We chose to call them dire wolves because they look like dire wolves and reflect the key traits we found by sequencing their genome.' A statement by Colossal to reporters in early April struck a more defensive tone. 'It's obvious most critics would rather complain than contribute,' it said. It asked critics to 'maybe also take a breath and think about what the birth of these technologies means to the future of our planet instead of nitpicking terminology'. Lamm insists that Colossal is willing to listen to scientists' criticisms. He points out that Gilbert is part of its scientific advisory board. But he also questions the legitimacy of some of Colossal's detractors. 'We have a couple of consistent critics that don't have the highest levels of credentials,' he says, 'people who haven't contributed to their fields in quite some time.' Meanwhile, one of Colossal's critics, evolutionary geneticist Vincent Lynch at the University at Buffalo in New York, has accused Lamm and the company of mounting a campaign to discredit him, after Lynch discovered several mostly anonymous web pages and posts questioning his expertise. In a series of posts on X and the social-media service Bluesky, Lynch said he suspects that Colossal and Lamm are responsible for the material. Nature has identified similar posts targeting other critics: Victoria Herridge, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Sheffield, UK; palaeoecologist Nic Rawlence at the University of Otago in New Zealand; and Kristofer Helgen, an evolutionary biologist at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. Lynch acknowledges that he has no direct evidence that Lamm or Colossal were involved. But he says he thinks that the articles targeting him and others were timed to undermine them just as the company was making major announcements, including those about the dire wolf and a gene-edited 'woolly mouse' that the company says lays the groundwork for its woolly mammoth de-extinction efforts. A Colossal spokesperson said the firm was unaware of the posts aimed at Herridge, Rawlence and Helgen, and became aware of those mentioning Lynch only when he accused Colossal of having a hand in them. The company and Lamm deny any involvement. 'It's unclear to the company who would write critical articles about Vincent Lynch, but given his obsession and aggressive behaviour, the company believes it's safe to assume he may have a few enemies,' says a spokesperson. Lynch says: 'Colossal clearly doesn't know anything about me or my life.' On 19 June, he received a letter from Colossal's lawyers, accusing him of defamation against Lamm and threatening legal action. Lynch says that holding companies and their founders accountable for their words and actions should not be considered defamation. 'It is our responsibility as scientists,' he says. Forging ahead From Colossal's perspective, the dire-wolf announcement was a success. Lamm says that the company tracked thousands of articles and social-media mentions about the achievement using artificial intelligence, and that they are overwhelmingly positive. 'I wouldn't change one thing,' he says. In July, Colossal announced controversial plans to de-extinct moas, a group of giant flightless birds that vanished not long after humans first arrived in New Zealand. And the company remains bullish on its other efforts, predicting that mammoth-like elephants could arrive as early as 2028. Some critics are becoming concerned about how the company will conduct its work in the future, and what the impacts of that might be. In a 2021 opinion piece in Nature, Herridge, who had previously turned down an invitation to serve as a scientific adviser to Colossal, wrote that she felt the company's founders were 'driven by a real desire to help the world'. But after the dire-wolf roll-out, she's concerned about Colossal's approach and its priorities. 'We have a company that is only listening to people who agree with them, who is pushing forward with statements that they aren't backing down from,' she says. This 'is not really where we want to be with a technology that has the potential to change the way our world will look'. Lamm disagrees. 'We happily engage with critics,' he says. 'As scientists, we will absolutely consider new data presented and adapt our hypotheses and conclusions.'
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Florida Python Challenge winner nabbed 60 snakes and she's just 4'11"
More than 900 people participated in the 2025 Python Challenge, a 10-day hunt in the steamy South Florida heat aimed at raising awareness of the destruction caused by the invasive reptile to the fragile Florida Everglades. The winners of the contest were announced Aug. 13, including Taylor Stanberry, who at 4-feet, 11-inches tall is taking home the grand prize of $10,000 for catching 60 snakes. "Every invasive python removed is a win," said Sarah Funk, nonnative fish and wildlife program coordinator with the Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission. Overall, the catches were monumental this year with 294 pythons captured — the most in the contest's history. At least one participant noted that the July dates for the hunt lined up with new hatchlings swarming the southern wetlands providing plenty of opportunities for hunters. Donna Kalil, a contract hunter for the South Florida Water Management District, nabbed 56 snakes during the Python Challenge between July 11 and July 20. She brought in 19 during the 2024 contest when the event was held Aug. 9 through Aug. 18. The grand prize winner last year nabbed 20 snakes. "It's all because of the timing," Kalil said. "There were a lot of little baby snakes just getting out of the nest. Some had already had a meal. They come out and are ready to eat." Burmese python breed in the late winter to early spring with females laying clutches of eggs in March or April. The incubation period lasts between 60 to 90 days. Hatchlings can be up to two feet long, which is a lot of what Kalil said she caught. Her longest snake measured 5 feet, 5 inches. Last year she brought in a 12-footer. "All I got was little guys," she said. Other winners will be announced later today, Aug. 13. A total of 934 hunters participated in this year's challenge. More: UF researchers deploy robotic rabbits across South Florida to fight Burmese python explosion While this year's participation is higher than 2024, the number of hunters has fluctuated over the years from a high of nearly 1,600 in 2013 to just 600 during the pandemic year of 2021. Participants hunted in designated areas that stretch from western Palm Beach County to the Tamiami Trail in the Big Cypress Wildlife Management Area. Other management areas included in the Python Challenge are Holey Land, Rotenberger and Southern Glades. This was also the first year that Everglades National Park allowed people to hunt in the park during the challenge. What are the prizes for the Florida Python Challenge? The $10,000 grand prize is awarded to the participant who removes the most snakes as part of the competition. There are also three competition categories including professional, novice and military. Each category includes a $2,500 price for most pythons caught, $1,500 for the second-highest number of pythons caught and $1,000 for the longest python. Participants may only win one prize, so if someone wins two, the person will be awarded the prize of the highest value and the next qualifying hunter will win the remaining prize. More: Python 'hot spot' identified in Palm Beach County by University of Florida study Why hunt Burmese pythons? Florida earnestly began hunting pythons in about 2012. It was the first year of the Python Challenge and the same year a study in Everglades National Park suggested pythons were responsible for a decline of 85% to 100% of the population of medium-sized furry animals, such as raccoons and rabbits. The Burmese python invasion started with releases — intentional or not — that allowed them to gain a foothold in the park by the mid-1980s, according to the 2021 Florida Python Control plan. By 2000, multiple generations of pythons were living in the park, which is noted in a more than 100-page 2023 report that summarized decades of python research. How many pythons have been caught? More than 15,800 snakes have been removed by hunters from the South Florida Water Management District and FWC since 2019. The hunters were called the "most effective management strategy in the history of the issue" by district invasive animal biologist Mike Kirkland. Kimberly Miller is a journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network of Florida. She covers real estate, weather, and the environment. Subscribe to The Dirt for a weekly real estate roundup. If you have news tips, please send them to kmiller@ Help support our local journalism, subscribe today. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: 2025 Florida Python Challenge winners announced by FWC Solve the daily Crossword
