Austin, Texas, September 16, 2008-- An ant so weird looking that its scientific name translates to "ant from Mars" is seen in this close-up released on September 15, 2008.

The tiny blind ant lives underground in the Amazon rain forest, emerging at night to prey on soft-bodied creatures such as termite larvae.

Martialis heureka is also the only known surviving member of an ant lineage that broke away from the base of the ant evolutionary tree more than 100 million years ago.

--John Roach

—Photograph courtesy C. Rabeling and M. Verhaagh/PNAS