Scientists at Simon Frasier University have discovered a 50-million-year-old fossil of a giant ant in Princeton, Canada, which has raised important questions about the dispersal of animals and plants in the Northern Hemisphere in the early Cenozoic period, mainly involving past climate changes. .
The specimen represents the first extinct ant of its kind. Titanomyrma found in Canada, giant insect with the body mass of a wren (bird about 10 cm) and wingspan of 15 cm. It was found by a resident of the city, Beverly Burlingame, and came to researchers Bruce Archibald and Rolf Mathewes through the local museum. An article analyzing the fossil was published in the scientific journal The Canadian Entomologist.
Migration of giant ants
A decade ago, along with other collaborators, Archibald found another fossil of Titanomyrma in a museum drawer, coming, this time, from Wyoming, in the United States. In geological terms, these remains are from ages close to those of other known fossils from Germany and England, raising the question of how the giant primitive insects would have traveled from one continent to another, since they appear, at the same time, on opposite sides of the Earth. Atlantic Ocean.
We know that North America and Europe were connected by land across the Arctic at the time of the giant ants, as continental drift hadn’t separated the landmasses enough, but that still leaves the problem of climate open. The places that housed the Titanomyrma, at the beginning of the Cenozoic, were hot, matching the temperatures preferred by ants with the largest queens of today. The Arctic, even though it was warmer, was still very cold.
In 2011, scientists who sought to explain the migration of the giant ant from Wyoming theorized that the animal would have taken advantage of short periods of global warming, called hyperthermals, where temperature conditions would have become friendly for the movement of Titanomyrma. The problem is that the theory was that the ants could not be found in the cold of the Canadian north, since it did not have the necessary heat. The recent finding broke that part of the hypothesis.
Geology, climate and mystery
The plot thickens when we consider that the Canadian fossil may have been distorted by geological pressure during its fossilization, which makes it difficult to determine its actual size – the ant would be as big as the largest of the queens Titanomyrma or could we rebuild it with a reduced size?
If it were smaller than it appears, the ant could have adapted to a colder climate through size reduction, extinguishing large species in northern Canada and fitting the 2011 theory. Another possibility is that the scientists are simply wrong and the giant species was able to tolerate the cold, also refuting the theory of the Arctic crossing, which could have been done amidst the frigid climate.
The Migration Mystery Titanomyrma is being studied by researchers, who seek to answer questions about the dispersal of animals and plants in a continent with a climate very different from the one we see today, whose influence can be seen in current patterns. To find out more about the early insect, we need to find more fossils, which could help us understand past global warming and give us interesting insights into how to deal with similar conditions in Earth’s future.
Source: The Canadian Entomologist
