I must confess the first time I saw the below picture of the Giant Ant fossil next to a humming bird, I though wow, that’s big! Then after doing a big of digging I found the second picture of 2 scientists inspecting the fossil.
Unless they are giants themselves, the ant was not as big as I had first imagined. Saying that, I still wouldn’t have wanted to have been attacked by them!
A giant ant growing over 5cm (2in) long crossed the Arctic during hot periods in the Earth’s history, scientists say, using land bridges between continents.
The ant, named Titanomyrma lubei, lived about 50 million years ago and is one of the largest ant species ever found.
Fossils were unearthed in ancient lake sediments in Wyoming, US.
Little is known about how these ants lived or what they ate – but wings are present on the fossils.
They are found, in Europe and now in Wyoming, close to plants known to thrive only in temperatures around 20C (70F).
Source: Giant ants spread in warm climes (BBC)
