100-mllion-year-old amber preserves oldest animal societies
Thursday, February 11, 2016 - 13:20
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Fighting ants, giant solider termites, and foraging worker ants recently discovered in 100-million-year-old amber provide direct evidence for advanced social behavior in ancient ants and termites—two groups that are immensely successful because of their ability to organize in hierarchies. The new work, led by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History and the University of Kansas, and published today in two papers in the journal Current Biology, proves that advanced sociality in ants and termites was present tens of millions of years earlier than indicated by the previous fossil record.