Jun 2, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro,Sci-News

Ceratomyrmex ellenbergeri. Image credit: Bo Wang 

In a paper published last week in the journal Current Biology, scientists described a new species of trap-jaw ant found in 99 million-year-old pieces of Burmese amber. 

The new species is named Ceratomyrmex ellenbergeri and belongs to the tribeHaidomyrmecini, possibly the earliest ant lineage.

Ceratomyrmex ellenbergeri lived during the Creataceous period, 99 million years ago, according to lead co-author Dr. Bo Wang of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology and his colleagues.

Workers of this ant species had a prominent horn and oversized, scythelike mandibles.

“Ceratomyrmex ellenbergeri differs from all other extinct and living ants by the presence, in workers, of a long cephalic horn arising from between the antennal insertions and curved forward and by very long, scythe-like mandibles, their tips reaching above head near to the horn’s apex,” Dr. Wang and co-authors explained.

The scientists think that these head structures functioned as a highly specialized trap for large-bodied prey.

“Haidomyrmecine ants were probably solitary specialist predators,” they said.

“Soon after the advent of ant societies in the Early Cretaceous, at least one lineage, the Haidomyrmecini, became adept at prey capture, independently arriving at morphological specializations that would be lost for millions of years after their disappearance near the close of the Mesozoic.”

The well-preserved specimens of Ceratomyrmex ellenbergeri were found in four different pieces of amber from the Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar (also known as Burma).

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Vincent Perrichot et al. Extreme Morphogenesis and Ecological Specialization among Cretaceous Basal Ants. Current Biology, published online May 26, 2016; doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.03.075 

From: http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/unicorn-ant-burmese-amber-03917.html