Discover new ants in Amazon

The blind ant species live underground by evolutionary biologist Christian Rabeling (University of Texas, Austin) discovered in the Amazon rainforest is the descendants of the first evolutionary ants.

The new ant is named Martialis heureka, literally translated 'ant originating from Mars' , because this ant has a collection of previously unseen traits in ants. It has adapted to the habit of residing in rock, the ant is only about 2 to 3 mm long, has a faded color, has no eyes but has a large upper jaw. Rabeling and his colleagues guessed that the upper jaw was used by ants to catch prey.

The new ant species also has its own subfamily, one of 21 ant subfamily. This is the first time that an existing member of the ant subfamily has been discovered since 1923. And the subfamily only found fossilized ants.

According to Rabeling, his discovery will help biologists better understand the ecological diversity as well as the evolution of ants while they exist in extreme numbers and are an important insect important to the environment.

On the paper published by the discovery published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Rabeling and his co-authors wrote: 'This finding implies the abundance of species that hold the importance of evolution. large hidden in the ground in the remaining rain forests'.

Rabeling collected the only sample of ants in 2003 in Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (Manaus, Brazil).

The hunting ant that lives under the blind Martialis heureka underground is discovered by Christian Rabeling of the University of Texas (Austin) in Amazon.It belongs to a new subfamily of ant species discovered in 1923, and a descendant of one of the species evolved 120 million years ago.(Photo: Christian Rabeling, University of Texas - Austin)

He and his colleagues discovered that this is a new ant species and a new subfamily after conducting genetic and shape analysis.DNA analysis on the legs of ants confirmed its phylogenetic position: at the base of the phylogenetic tree of ants.

Ants evolved 120 million years ago from the ancestors of wasps. Perhaps they have rapidly evolved into many different species, there are species that specialize in soil, leaves or trees.

Rabeling is currently a PhD student in ecology, evolution and behavior. He said: 'This discovery reinforces the notion that the prey hunting ants living in the ground have emerged right from the beginning of evolution.'

Rabeling does not think that the ancestors of all the first ants were blind and lived underground, but these adaptive traits could be formed very early and maintained over the years.

Rabeling said: 'Based on our fossil record and data, we believe that the ancestors of this ant species are a bit like wasps, or perhaps similar to the Sphecomyrma fossil in Cretaceous amber . Today it is widely used as the missing evolutionary link between wasps and ants.

He also suspected that the new ants have evolved adaptive traits over time to fit into the underground habitat (such as fading eyes or faint body color) while it retains one. number of natural characteristics of the ancestors.

'New ants hide under tropical rocks where they are less competitive with other ants, they also live in a relatively stable climate. It is the surviving representative that carries some of the ancestral morphological characteristics'.