‘Things keep evolving into anteaters.’ Odd animals arose at least 12 times
Findings speak to the dramatic impact ants and termites can have on mammalian evolution.
Once dinosaurs were out, anteaters were in. In the 66 million years since non-avian dinosaurs went extinct, mammals have evolved into forms specialized for eating ants and termites at least 12 different times. The new findings, published on 16 July in Evolution, speak to the dramatic impact ants and termites can have on other species through sheer mass, says lead study author Thomas Vida, a paleontologist most recently at the University of Bonn. In the rainforests of Central and South America, ants and termites outweigh all other insects, mammals, amphibians, and birds combined—and globally, termites alone outweigh all wild mammals by a factor of 10. “Social insects just have this way of causing co-evolution around them,” he says. Scientists knew that myrmecophagous—or ant- and termite-eating—mammals had evolved independently multiple times, from the anteaters of the tropical Americas to the unrelated pangolins and aardvarks living in Africa and Asia. The animals share ant-slurping adaptations such as long, sticky tongues, reduced teeth, and strong forelimbs for digging into insect nests. But until the new study, no one had investigated the diet’s evolutionary history in detail...
Read more: ‘Things keep evolving into anteaters.’ Odd animals arose at least 12 separate times | Science | AAAS
