The first fossil of an ant from Africa, found in aperson named amber dating back 95 million years, challenges a previously held theory that ants originated in North America or East Asia. The finding is part of a larger study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences identifying 28 fossilized insects, one spider and one mite, as well as a variety of flora all trapped in amber from Ethiopia. The insects, the oldest that have been identified in Africa, are from the Cretaceous. There are also numerous fungi, ferns and spores that were previously unknown to paleontologists. Until now, paleontologists had assumed that ants originated in North America or South Asia, because the only known fossils were from these regions, said Alexander Schmidt, the paper’s lead author and a biologist at the University of Göttingen in Germany.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/science12/06o453amber.html?scp=?1&sq=North%20Africa&st=cse
April 15, 2010 at 3:58 am
Good article Jazmin, very interesting and i understand what you put. Thats amazing that ants were alive for that long.