In 2025 Brazilian paleontologists announced their discovery of something new and interesting among the ancient rocks already in the collection of a major Brazilian museum. It was the oldest fossil of an ant ever found. In our modern world, ants are an incredibly successful group of insects. There are at least twenty thousand different species, and they are indigenous to every continent on Earth except Antarctica. The total mass of ants on Earth is estimated to be comparable to the total mass of human beings. The ecological importance of these insects makes biologists very interested in knowing their history.
The ant fossil, found in limestone rock, was remarkably well preserved. Finding an insect fossil in rock is unusual. Insect fossils are most commonly found in amber—tree resin that has hardened into a natural plastic.
The fossil is one hundred and thirteen million years old, which means that the ant lived during the time of the dinosaurs. It is about ten million years older than any other ant fossil ever found. Unlike any modern ant, it had huge jaws like a reaper’s scythe, which it probably used to impale its prey. These fearsome jaws identify it as a member of a group of ants that paleontologists have named hell ants.
The find demonstrates that hell ants were once widespread in the world, since other hell ant fossils have been found as far from their discovery in Brazil as France and Myanmar. Hell ants are extinct today. They didn’t survive the mass extinction event, probably caused by the impact of an asteroid or a comet, that ended the era of the dinosaurs.
A special thanks goes to Ryan Mckellar, Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology, Royal Saskatchewan Museum, Adjunct Professor, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, for reviewing today's episode!
Further Reading
- The oldest ant ever discovered found fossilized in Brazil | ScienceDaily
- Oldest ant fossil ever found reveals history of ‘hell ants’ | Science | AAAS
- Researchers find oldest ant known to science—113-million-year-old ‘hell ant’ with scythe jaws | National Geographic
- 113-Million-Year-Old Hell Ant Fossil Breaks Age Record for Such Insects | Discover MagazineOldest-known ant preserved in 113 million-year-old Brazilian fossil | Reuters
A. Lepeco et al. 2025, A hell ant from the Lower Cretaceous of Brazil, Current Biology, 35: 2146-2153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2025.03.023