Sensory evidence for complex communication and advanced sociality in early ants

IBA Yasuhiro

Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Jun. 18, 2024

本研究で使用した白亜紀の化石アリGerontoformica gracilis（ゲロントフォルミカ・グラキリス）

Joint press release (in Japanese) Hokkaido University, Fukuoka University

Abstract
Advanced social behavior, or eusociality, has been evolutionarily profound, allowing colonies of ants, termites, social wasps, and bees to dominate competitively over solitary species throughout the Cenozoic. Advanced sociality requires not just nestmate cooperation and specialization but refined coordination and communication. Here, we provide independent evidence that 100-million-year-old Cretaceous ants in amber were social, based on chemosensory adaptations. Previous studies inferred fossil ant sociality from individual ants preserved adjacent to others. We analyzed….

Read the original article on Science Advances

Article Information:
Ryo Taniguchi, David A. Grimaldi, Hidehiro Watanabe, and Yasuhiro Iba
Sensory evidence for complex communication and advanced sociality in early ants. Science Advances 10,  24 (2024)
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adp3623