Ammon News - A rare fossil in Dominican amber unveils a miniature, ancient “dirt ant” once native to the Caribbean.
Ants are a common sight wherever soil is found, but one group is so expertly camouflaged that they have earned the exclusive name “dirt ants” (Basiceros).

A newly uncovered fossil is now offering new insight into just how far these elusive ants once roamed.

In a study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, biologists from the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) have documented the first fossilized Basiceros dirt ant discovered in the Caribbean. The specimen, an adult worker, was preserved in 16-million-year-old amber from the Dominican Republic.

Discovery expands Basiceros history
According to researchers, the fossilized adult worker ant belongs to a newly identified species named Basiceros enana, which is significantly smaller than its living counterparts. This discovery provides direct evidence that this secretive ant lineage once lived on the Caribbean islands but later disappeared from the region during the Miocene epoch (23 to 5.3 million years ago).

“Dirt ants are rare finds in the wild. Finding one today is exciting given how well they stay hidden, but captured in amber, it’s like finding a diamond,” said Gianpiero Fiorentino, corresponding author of the study and Ph.D. candidate at NJIT’s Barden Lab. “This fossil is singularly distinct from all its modern relatives and reshapes the evolutionary history of Basiceros.” SciTechDaily