The �Society� of Ancient Ants

February 24, 2016

The "Society" of Ancient Ants If you've ever seen an ant farm or even observed a bee's nest (from a safe distance, we hope!) you know that insects seem to have strong organizational skills. Duties are assigned and each insect seems to know its place. This observation has recently been scientifically proven by researches studying a 100-million-year-old piece of amber from Myanmar. The amber contains six termite species, which were broken down into different functionality or castes. In layman's terms, the species found were divided between what their role was: soldiers, workers, and those with reproductive purposes. Think of it as productive society, all captured in this small piece of amber from almost the Jurassic period. "The behavior of these fossil ants, frozen for 100 million years, resolves any ambiguity regarding sociality and diversity in the earliest ants," said researcher Phillip Barden. It seems these prehistoric ants were pretty advanced! Do these findings surprise you? What else do you think researchers will find out about these ancient ants? These findings have definitely made for great conversations around the water-cooler at GGA Pest Management Services.