The main findings from this study have been retracted since the publication of this article in November 2022.
While you may not think of ants when you imagine an army, scientists say that the insects were some of the world’s first soldiers, forming their own forces millions of years ago.
In fact, researchers recently found one of the oldest fossilized specimens of a so-called army ant in a piece of preserved amber from around 35 million years ago, according to a paper published in Biology Letters. More than anything, the specimen suggests that these predatory ants were once much more diverse and widespread than they already are today.
“Army ant workers participate in raiding swarms, hunting other insects and even vertebrates,” says Christine Sosiak, a study author and a student at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, in a press release. This activity sometimes results in the consumption of over ...
