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A story of ants.   Ants are the most abundant of insects, the most effective predators of other insects, and the busiest scavengers of small dead animals. They transport the seeds of thousands of plant species, and they turn and enrich more soil than earthworms. In totality (they number roughly in the million billions and weight about as much as all of humanity), they are among the key players of Earth’s terrestrial environment. Of equal general interest, they have attained their dominion by means of the most advanced social organization known among animals.

In the early 1960's, one of the vexing mys- teries of evolution was the origin of ants. The oldest known ants, found in fossil deposits up to 57 million years old, were already advanced anatomically, quite similar to the modern forms all about us. And just as today, these ancient ants were among the most diverse and abundant of insects. Then, one Sunday morning in 1967 at Cliffwood Beach, New Jersey, two beautifully pre- served ants were found in amber about 90 million years of age, from the middle of the Cretaceous period, Mesozoic era in the Age of Dinosaurs. They were more primitive then all other known ants, living and fossil; they possessed most of the intermediate traits that connect modern ants to the nonsocial wasps. As a result of the discovery, other entomologists intensified their search, and many more ant fossils of Mesozoic age were found in Canada, Siberia, and Brazil. They compose a mix of primitive and more advanced species and they have illuminated the history of ants from near the point of origin over 100 million years ago to the start of the great radiative spread that created the modern fauna.

Based upon The story of two ants by Edward O. Wilson, in The best American science and nature writing 2001.

a story of ants

The ants of Grabov Rat: when they discovered the abundance of datura seeds, about 40 meters from their underground facilities, highly organized, they collected the seeds in half a day. An army of marching ants was bringing the seeds to the entrance (actually, a crack in our driveway) while other specialists were loading the seeds underground. The piling up of the seeds was probably due to the relatively small entrance. An hour after this photo was taken, not a single seed remained.

 2009-10-11 

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