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Ants are among the most familiar insects on Earth today, but their origins remain cloaked in deep evolutionary history. Until now, the oldest known ant specimens came from amber deposits in France and Myanmar, dating to the Cretaceous period around 100 million years ago. But a new discovery—published recently in the journal Current Biology—pushes that timeline back even further. “Our team has discovered a new fossil ant species representing the earliest undisputable geological record of ants,” said lead author Anderson Lepeco in a recent statement. “What makes this discovery particularly interesting is that it belongs to the extinct ‘hell ant,’...

Around 99 million years ago, a juvenile cockroach met a hellish fate. It was snapped up by the jaws of a Cretaceous hell ant, a fierce predator with long, curving mandibles that swept up toward the top of the ant's head. Just moments later, the ant and roach were trapped in sticky sap that eventually turned to amber, providing scientists with a first glimpse of how the weird-faced ants trapped prey. The profile of a hell ant, with exaggerated upward-facing jaws that arc like the Grim Reaper's scythe, is unlike that of any ant alive today. Adding to the facial...