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Monday, November 23, 2009

Photo: Blind "Ant From Mars" Found in Amazon


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The single known specimen of a new ant species dubbed Martialis heureka is seen from above in an undated photo.

The pale, blind ant was found in the Amazon rain forest and is the only known surviving member of a lineage that separated from the main ant family more than a hundred million years ago, biologists reported in September 2008.

Photograph courtesy C. Rabeling and M. Verhaagh/National Academy of Sciences, PNAS (2008)