25-04-2025
Oldest ant ever that lived with dinosaurs discovered. It's 113-million-year-old
Scientists have developed the oldest ant that ever lived in northeastern Brazil and is aged 113 million details published in the journal Current Biology make it the oldest ant specimen known to science. The hell ant, which was preserved in limestone, is a member of Haidomyrmecinae — an extinct subfamily that only lived during the Cretaceous period.'Our team has discovered a new fossil ant species representing the earliest undisputable geological record of ants,' said author Anderson Lepeco of Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de Sao Paulo.
The newly reported species represents the oldest definitive ant known to science. (Photo: Current Biology)
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The specimen was discovered while the researchers systematically examined one of the world's largest collections of fossil insects from the Crato Formation. It's a deposit renowned for its exceptional fossil preservation. The collection is housed at the Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de So discovery challenges the knowledge around the evolution of ants and their biogeography through time. The previous oldest ants were found in France and Burma and were preserved in amber instead of limestone.'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 behaviours," Anderson existence of a hell ant in Brazil shows that ants were already widely distributed and diversified early in their evolution, says the team.
It's the most complete evidence for the early evolution of ants in the fossil record. (Photo: Current Biology)
advertisement'Even though there have been hell ants described from amber, this was the first time we could visualise this in a rock fossil,' said team conducted Micro-computed tomography imaging — a 3D imaging technique that uses X-rays to view the inside of an object. They found that the newly discovered ant was closely related to hell ants previously known only from specimens preserved in Burmese amber — a type of amber found in Myanmar.'While we expected to find hell ant features, we were shocked by the characteristics of its feeding apparatus. The intricate morphology suggests that even these earliest ants had already evolved sophisticated predatory strategies significantly different from their modern counterparts," researchers added.
