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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works. Hey, brain

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Speaker 1: Stuff is Christian Sager. Here, fire ants, carpenter ants, bull ants.

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Speaker 1: There are a lot of ant species that can cause

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Speaker 1: a great deal of harm. The worst one alive today,

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Speaker 1: according to the Guinness World Records, is the bulldog aunt.

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Speaker 1: It has killed at least three humans, some within fifteen minutes.

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Speaker 1: But perhaps the worst aunt ever was the hell aunt,

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Speaker 1: a prehistoric insect that was recently discovered encased in a

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Speaker 1: chunk of Myanmar amber dating to the Late Cretaceous period.

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Speaker 1: Evolutionary biologist Philip Barden of the New Jersey Institute of

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Speaker 1: Technology and his team wrote about the hell aunt discovery

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Speaker 1: in the journal Systemic Entomology. The hell aunt got its

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Speaker 1: name from its anatomy and behavior. Instead of having a

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Speaker 1: typical mouth, the hell aunt had blade that stuck upward,

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Speaker 1: think like tusks, plus a horn that was reinforced with metal.

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Speaker 1: Scientists don't know for sure how the hell ant used

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Speaker 1: its unusual appendages, but they have some theories. First, it

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Speaker 1: seems clear that the ants tusks and horn were mainly

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Speaker 1: used for catching prey. So here's one possible m O

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Speaker 1: when it came to finding dinner. When a tasty insect

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Speaker 1: passed nearby, the hell ance jaw tusks would flip the

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Speaker 1: insect up and onto its horn, impaling it. Spearing prey

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Speaker 1: does take a toll, though, which is probably why the

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Speaker 1: hell ants horn was clad with metal. And if that

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Speaker 1: isn't gruesome enough, researchers say this prehistoric insect might have

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Speaker 1: had some vampire like tendencies to When the ants snagged

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Speaker 1: its prey, its tusk like jaws clothes to form a gutter,

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Speaker 1: which may have been a means of funneling the insects

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Speaker 1: blood right down into the ant's gullet. The hell ants

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Speaker 1: scientific known as Lingua mirmes vlady, was discovered in a

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Speaker 1: chunk of amber that was nine million years old. Although

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Speaker 1: it's unusual appendages were likely used to catch its food,

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Speaker 1: researchers say they may have occasionally been used defensively. This

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Speaker 1: is not the only insects sporting metal either. Some present

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Speaker 1: day termite species actually have zinc and manganese in their mandibles. However,

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Speaker 1: there are no modern ants similarly equipped. Today's episode was

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Speaker 1: written by Melanie rad Zeki McManus, produced by Tristan McNeil

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Speaker 1: and for more on this and other topics. Please visit

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Speaker 1: us at how stuff works dot com.