The "hell ant" had "bizarre predatory adaptations," namely upward-facing, scythe-like jaws that would impale its prey before moving it like a forklift into its mouth.
Anderson LepecoThe “hell ant” fossil found in Brazil is 13 million years older than other known specimens.
While checking rock samples at Brazil’s Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo, entomologist Anderson Lepeco came across a fossil that caught his eye. It reminded him of prehistoric ant fossils found in Myanmar, some of the oldest ever uncovered.
To his surprise, he soon discovered that his fossil was a close match to those, only it was even more noteworthy. In fact, Lepeco had just stumbled upon a 113-million-year-old “hell ant” fossil, the oldest ant fossil ever documented.
What’s more, this fossil is remarkable for other reasons aside from its age. Its striking preservation is now giving scientists new insights into how these fearsome hell ants evolved and spread across the prehistoric world.
The Chance Discovery Of The Oldest Ant Fossil Ever Found
The oldest known ant fossil ever found was indeed discovered entirely by chance. According to a press release, Anderson Lepeco of Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil was checking rocks from the Crato Formation for fossils when he came across the familiar shape of an ant.
“I was looking for wasps in the collection when I noticed this odd specimen among the fossils,” Lepeco told All That’s Interesting in an email. “At first I thought it was a wasp. However, after looking at some ants from Burmese amber, I realized it could be one of them. When we examined the fossil more deeply and studied it through computed tomography, we vanished all of our doubts. It was indeed an ant!”
According to a new study published by Lepeco and his team in the journal Current Biology, Lepeco had not only found an ant, but the oldest known ant specimen ever documented. This fossil was 113 million years old, roughly 13 million years older than the previously-oldest ant fossils, which had been discovered in amber deposits in France and Myanmar.
This discovery is furthermore exciting because Lepeco and his team have found a new species of hell ant, known for its “bizarre predatory adaptations.” Lepeco and his team have dubbed the new ant species Vulcanidris cratensis after the Vulcano family that donated the rock deposits where it was discovered.
Anderson LepecoThe 113-million-year-old hell ant found in Brazil, as seen from several different angles.
Unlike modern ants, which have mandibles that move laterally, this hell ant had a mandible that ran forward alongside its head, so that it could impale its prey.
“It has been speculated that hell ants could pierce their prey with the mandibles and facial horns,” Lepeco told All That’s Interesting. “I think that this new species could have used its mandibles as a forklift to grab the prey, holding it against the facial projection. This could have served as a means to take the prey off the ground and carry it for long distances.”
Not only was this hell ant a fascinatingly fierce predator, but the 113-million-year-old fossil also tells a fascinating story about how ants spread quickly across the prehistoric world.
How The Hell Ant Initially Emerged And Eventually Died Out In The Prehistoric World
What’s fascinating about the discovery of the Vulcanidris cratensis species is how similar it is to previously studied ant fossils. Using micro-computed tomography imaging (3D imaging that uses X-rays to see inside an object), Lepeco and his team were able to see that the ant found in Brazil was strikingly similar to prehistoric ant specimens found trapped in amber in Myanmar.
This shows that ants were widespread across the Earth, and that they must have crisscrossed Cretaceous landmasses countless times.
“Considering that there are hell ants from deposits in France and Myanmar, their presence in South America indicates that hell ants were widespread,” Lepeco explained to All That’s Interesting. “At that time, all southern continents were closer to each other, forming the supercontinent Gondwana. However, the northern continents, including North America and Eurasia, were far away from Gondwana. This new fossil suggests that hell ants were successful and capable of dispersing through long distances along their evolutionary history.”
Anderson LepecoResearchers used micro-computed tomography imaging to closely examine the ant fossil and to document similarities between it and other ant fossils found in Myanmar.
According to the Field Museum, ants first emerged some 140 to 168 million years ago, and lived alongside the dinosaurs starting in the Cretaceous Period.
However, hell ants like the one found in Brazil did not survive into our modern era. After a devastating asteroid strike killed the dinosaurs roughly 66 million years ago, hell ants like this one went extinct.
That said, ants on the whole continued to thrive and soon became the most common insect in the fossil record. Today, there are an estimated 20 quadrillion individual ants on Earth, or 2.5 million ants for every one human being.
To Lepeco, the new find is significant in one other way as well: this 113-million-year-old hell ant is an example of what researchers can find hidden in existing collections as well as an indication of the wealth of fossil history in Brazil.
“This finding highlights the importance of thorough examination of existing collections — private or in museums,” he noted, “and brings a spotlight to Brazilian paleontology and the underexplored fossil insect fauna of the country.”
After reading about the oldest known ant fossil ever found, discover the story of the bullet ant, the insect with the world’s most painful sting. Then, learn about cordyceps, the real-life “zombie” fungus featured on The Last Of Us, which kills ants and other insects.
