Insects are the vain of many people’s existence, and one that seems to be unstoppable and more bothersome than the rest is ants. It seems impossible to get rid of them, they are everywhere, and if you are unlucky enough to get them in your home getting rid of them will be a monumental task that you are not ready for.
Ants just keep multiplying with no signs of stopping, according to a study from the U.S. National Library of Medicine, there are an estimated 20 quadrillion ants across the planet, and that is just what we can fathom from the evidence that we have, not counting remote or unexplored locations which could have significantly higher populations that we are just unaware of.
For those who want to do the math, 20 quadrillion ants amount to 2.5 million per person in the planet, which is an unfathomable number in general, let alone per person.
The latest fossil discovery related to ants in the world
Even though just calculating the sheer amount of these insects would we a big discovery, scientist from Brazil have made an even bigger discovery. They have found a new type of ant fossil belonging to an extinct group called Haidomyrmecinae, commonly referred to as hell ants. The precise fossil that they found belongs to the Vulcanidris cratensis, which lived approximately 113 million years ago in northeastern Brazil.
While this discovery might seem inconsequential, anything that teaches us about the past of our planet is an incredible source of information about the different periods the Earth has gone through and how the planet has changed through the years.
The discovery was published in the journal Current Biology and describes how the fossil was preserved in limestone. Anderson Lepeco from the Museum of Zoology at the University of São Paulo explained that this new discovery is now considered “the oldest undisputed geological record of ants.”
While there are many types of these insects running round the world and their exterior aspect can differ vastly depending on the region and their unique diet, these insects are quite unique in their appearance and feature a distinct trait, a scythe-like mandible which researchers believe that was used to attack their prey.
The study’s author remarked “What makes this discovery fascinating is that it belongs to the extinct hell ant group, known for its predatory adaptations.” In other words, these creatures likely had unique hunting behavior and were likely to catch their food live instead feeding on carcasses like many species nowadays.
What makes this even more interesting is that up until now, the oldest ant fossils had only been found in places like France and Myanmar. This fossil’s location in Brazil is pretty far from those regions, so its existence shows that ants were already spread across different continents during the early days of their evolutionary history. As the researchers said, “While hell ants have been described from amber, this is the first time we’ve observed one in a rock fossil.”
What makes this discovery even more fascinating is that researchers were not looking for them, they were examining one of the largest fossil insect collections from the Crato Formation, which is known for turning up some incredibly well-preserved specimens. Lepeco was ecstatic with the find, as he explained “When I found this specimen, we immediately recognized its importance—not just as a new species, but as potential definitive evidence of ants in the Crato Formation.”
Given the significance of this new discovery, it is no wonder that the Crato Formation continues to be thought as one of the best places to study specimens.