Well, turning to the net I came across this ... to see what you think:
A new species of insect, believed to be the oldest ancestor of the ant, was discovered in the Amazon rainforest.
scientists have called "ant from Mars" Martialis Heureka, for its strange and unique characteristics.
is a species of ant blind, subterranean, predatory about two to three millimeters long.
The finding, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA) was done by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, USA
As the authors note, the new ant has a combination of features never before been recorded.
"is a species adapted to live under the ground, pale, and has no eyes but large mandibles that we used to catch prey, "says biologist Christian Rabeling, who led the research.
According to the researcher, the finding" will help biologists better understand the biodiversity and evolution of ants, which are abundant and ecologically important insects.
Many more
Rabeling and his colleagues found the only known specimen of the ant Mars in 2003, on a bed of leaves in the Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária in Manaus, Brazil.
After carrying out morphological and genetic analysis, scientists realized that this was a new species, genus and subfamily of ants.
And since 1923, say the authors, this is the first time it has been discovered a new subfamily with living species of these insects.
"The finding shows that there are many other species, possibly of great evolutionary importance, still hidden underground in the tropical forests," says Rabeling.
Ants evolved from wasps more than 120 million years. Underground
Researchers believe that these insects probably evolved quickly and created different lineages, some specializing in live beneath the earth, others in leaf litter or trees and other general.
"The finding, says Rabeling, supports theories that blind subterranean predator emerged in the early evolution of ants."
But this, he adds, does not mean that the ancestor of all ants was blind and subterranean, but that these adaptations arose in the beginning and have persisted over the years.
"Based on the data and the fossil record," says the researcher assumed that the ancestor of this ant was similar to a wasp. "
"Perhaps it seemed to Sphecomyrma, a fossil from the Cretaceous era, which has been recognized as the evolutionary missing link between wasps and ants."
Curious, no? I really do not know what more there below us ... perhaps there are still things to discover on this planet:)
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