Prehistoric 'hell ants' hunted their prey with unusual headgear

[Nevilledog]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/world/prehistoric-hell-ant-amber-fossil-trnd-scn/index.html

(CNN)Sometime during the Cretaceous period, 99 million years ago, a prehistoric hell ant trapped a tasty treat -- a relative of the cockroach -- in its scythe-like jaw and protruding horn.

It's still there. The act was captured in tree resin and later unearthed in amber in what is now Myanmar. The unusual find shows how the insect, one of several prehistoric species known as hell ants, used its unique headgear.

"Fossilized behavior is exceedingly rare, predation (the act of predator attacking prey) especially so," said Phillip Barden, assistant professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology department of biological sciences and lead author of the research, which published Thursday in the journal Current Biology.

"As paleontologists, we speculate about the function of ancient adaptations using available evidence, but to see an extinct predator caught in the act of capturing its prey is invaluable," he said in a news statement.

*snip*

[lapfog_1]

1. someone get the tiny drill

and a needle... see, we drill a small hole in the amber, insert the needle and extract the dried blood of a prehistoric cockroach and then we reconstruct the DNA...

What could possibly go wrong?

[Nevilledog]

2. Let's wait until 2021 at least.