Researchers found the fossil ants in the sap of 95 million years old. The finding was challenged earlier well-established theory, regarding the origin of ants.Ants are found in Africa and challenged the conclusions of ants from North America or South Asia.
The findings were part of a wider study in the Proceedings of the National Academic Science that identified 28 fossils of insects, one fossil and one spider mite, including varieties of flora that are trapped in the sap in Ethiopia.
Who identified the oldest insect in Africa is from Crataceous. There are also some fungi, spores of ferns and previously unknown to paleontologists.
Until now, paleontologists assumed ants from North America or South Asia because they only found the fossils come from the region, as described by Alexander Schmidt, lead author and biologist at the University of Gottingen in Germany.
He and his colleagues believe that further analysis will be able to explain how the evolutionary process of ants and ant Ethiopians are biologically connected to the Cretaceous of the northern hemisphere.
The text is the culmination of five-year study by 20 researchers from seven countries, including specialists in estimating the date of discovery and experts outside of insects and flora.
"It is an interdisciplinary project and a full attention to producing holistic studies," said Schmidt.
Samples are currently stored in its original place in Berlin and Vienna, although some are still in the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
