Though ants are conventionally believed to value teamwork, a new study on an extinct ant species revealed that the animal used to be a solitary hunter some 100 million years ago. 

According to an article published in the journal Current Biology, an insect called haidomyrmecine, or hell ant, is considered to be the earliest ant species that lived during the Cretaceous period when dinosaurs took over the world. One of these ants was captured in tree resin and found preserved in amber dating back 100 million years. 

After analyzing the amber specimen, scientists from China, the United States and France found that the amber had captured a predation attempt. The study revealed the hell ant can prey on independently in a way that existing ants can't. 

Unlike most ant species, hell ant had a horn on its head and a pair of scythe-like jaws. When its horn hit the prey, the jaws in the mouth would promptly move up. The horn on top and jaws on the bottom would then form a trap, firmly locking the prey. 

The unique behavior of catching prey enabled hell ants to live independently, instead of working in unity, said Wang Bo, co-author of the article and researcher at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. 

The scientists made a database of more than 100 extant and extinct ant species to draw a comparison with the hell ant. They found no evidence of this characteristic in other ant groups. 

The findings confirmed the hypothesis that hell ants could grab its prey in a manner that could only be achieved by using its horn and jaws in a direction unlike that in all living ants and nearly all insects, the article said. 

The origin and evolution of ants are of concern to scientists as well as the public. Previous studies showed that hell ants thrived 100 million years ago and gradually became extinct in the following 20 to 30 million years. More-advanced modern ant groups replaced them. 

"Ants are the most successful social insects, but the earliest ants were proved to be self-sustaining solitary animals," said Wang, adding that the new study offers people a glimpse into what the world was like 100 million years ago. (Xinhua)