Posted on 05/03/2011 9:41:13 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
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 America 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 United States, 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. ..
"I immediately recognized it and said, 'Oh my god, this is a giant ant and it looks like it's related to giant ants that are known from about this time in Germany.'"
...
Monster ant
Archibald dubbed the new ant Titanomyrma lubei -- "titan" for its size, "myrma" for the Greek, "myrmex," or ant, and "lubei" for the fossil collector who discovered the specimen, Louis Lube. ..
Ants are tough bugs -- some can even create rafts out of their own bodies to survive floods. But a look at modern large ants showed Archibald and his colleagues that T. lubei very likely needed a warm climate to live, similar to modern-day giant ants. ..
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
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Maybe they’re not missing, maybe they’re just over the hill.
Whoever she was, she played her part to the Nth Degree!
It’s only a movie, Ben....
I wholeheartedly agree.
I wholeheartedly agree.
“THEM! THEM!”
*silence*
*scream*
That is ironic. And thanks.
Prochlorococcus links:
http://genome.jgi-psf.org/prom9/prom9.home.html
Prochlorococcus images:
http://www.google.com/images?q=prochlorococcus&sa=X&oi=image_result_group
IOW, nobody took the bait.
The evil trickster god (Loki) created all the elements and isotopes in the exact ratios they would have had if they were created billions of years ago, only he did it 6000 years ago...
If they aren't at 50,000,000 years, I want to know what's in their diet!
What I always found most interesting is here we have what is probably far and away the most abundant living species on the planet.
And it was totally unknown until about 1979!!
So everytime I hear of an article or some scientists opinion something like “Well, we got that one covered pretty well.” all I can do is chuckle... OOOOOOOOO KKKKKkkkkkkk... yeah, right!
;-)
That must be it. Of course to use he's an evil trickster god. To Thor, he's just another nail.
When your only tool is a Hammer...
The front leg looks like a giant panda head.
RAID! Oh, sorry.
The secret is fiber. Lots and lots of fiber.
She was so CUTE! And SUCH n actress!
And you would know about FIBER because....??? (She asks, coyly....)
I'm not buying it. There should be piles of 50,000,000 hummingbird-sized ant coprolites then....lots of them!
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