Remains Found in Amber Suggest Ants Emerged 130 Million Years Ago

Scientists have found the remains of 92-million-year-old ants encased in amber from New Jersey. The finding suggests that ants first arose 120 million to 130 million years ago--far earlier than suspected. The seven ant fossils are not the oldest ever found. But one of them is surprisingly advanced for the era it lived in, suggesting that ants must have started evolving earlier, entomologist David Grimaldi and his colleagues at the American Museum of Natural History in New York report in today’s Nature.

Before the finding, scientists might have guessed that ants originated about 100 million years ago, Grimaldi said. The oldest ant ever found is a poorly preserved specimen from Brazil that dates to about 110 million years ago, but it’s not clear that creature is truly an ant, he said.

Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II