German Scientists Discover 120 Million Year Old Bizarre Ant in Amazon Forest

German biologists have discovered an hitherto unknown ant species, believed to be the oldest on the planet, deep in the Amazon rain forest.

Field researchers from Karlsruhe’s Natural History Museum who made the discovery near Manaus, Brazil, say the species, which resembles miniature wasps and looks like no other, may date back around 120 million years, according to Reuters.

Martialis heureka, nicknamed the “Ant from Mars” due to its unusual features and heureka from its surprising discovery, the ants themselves are eyeless, pale in color, subterranean, and predatory, according to Wikipedia.

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The ant species has been termed bizarre because it also possesses unusual, elongated mandibles and are distinctly basal in their features. Like all basal ants, they possess a stinger.

Scientists believe that these features evolved early in ant history and have persisted in the environmentally stable soils of the tropical rainforest; however, this does not mean that the ancestor to all ants was blind and lived underground.

It was apparently the latest ant find in 85 years - since 1923.

Image credit: Snap® at Flickr under a Creative Commons license Note: This image is for illustration only and does not depict the actual Martialis heureka species.

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