Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 03 May 2011 Time: 07:01 PM ET
Almost 50 million years ago, ants the size of hummingbirds roamed what is now Wyoming, a new fossil discovery reveals. These giant bugs may have crossed an Arctic land bridge between Europe and NorthAmerica
during a particularly warm period in Earth's history.
At about 2 inches (5 cm) long, the specimen is a "monstrously big ant," said Bruce Archibald, a paleoentomologist at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia who reported the discovery today (May 3) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Though fossils of loose giant ant wings have been found before in the UnitedStates , this is the first known full-body specimen.
The fossil ant is from a well-known fossil site in Wyoming called the Green River Formation, but it had been sitting in a drawer at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Archibald said. When a curator showed him the fossil, Archibald said, he knew he was looking at something exciting. [Image of the giant ant fossil]...Continue Reading
Almost 50 million years ago, ants the size of hummingbirds roamed what is now Wyoming, a new fossil discovery reveals. These giant bugs may have crossed an Arctic land bridge between Europe and North
At about 2 inches (5 cm) long, the specimen is a "monstrously big ant," said Bruce Archibald, a paleoentomologist at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia who reported the discovery today (May 3) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Though fossils of loose giant ant wings have been found before in the United
The fossil ant is from a well-known fossil site in Wyoming called the Green River Formation, but it had been sitting in a drawer at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Archibald said. When a curator showed him the fossil, Archibald said, he knew he was looking at something exciting. [Image of the giant ant fossil]...Continue Reading
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