Tiny Fossil's Discovery Challenges Scientific Understanding
A 16-million-year-old fossil of a tiny dirt ant from Dominican amber has challenged previous beliefs by showing that the Basiceros ant lineage once lived in the Caribbean, indicating a more complex evolutionary history and biogeographic distribution than previously thought. The discovery also suggests that these ants nearly doubled in size over 20 million years and highlights their advanced survival strategies, despite their eventual extinction due to environmental changes and competition.