Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works. Hey, brain
Speaker 1: Stuff is Christian Sager. Here, fire ants, carpenter ants, bull ants.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of ant species that can cause
Speaker 1: a great deal of harm. The worst one alive today,
Speaker 1: according to the Guinness World Records, is the bulldog aunt.
Speaker 1: It has killed at least three humans, some within fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: But perhaps the worst aunt ever was the hell aunt,
Speaker 1: a prehistoric insect that was recently discovered encased in a
Speaker 1: chunk of Myanmar amber dating to the Late Cretaceous period.
Speaker 1: Evolutionary biologist Philip Barden of the New Jersey Institute of
Speaker 1: Technology and his team wrote about the hell aunt discovery
Speaker 1: in the journal Systemic Entomology. The hell aunt got its
Speaker 1: name from its anatomy and behavior. Instead of having a
Speaker 1: typical mouth, the hell aunt had blade that stuck upward,
Speaker 1: think like tusks, plus a horn that was reinforced with metal.
Speaker 1: Scientists don't know for sure how the hell ant used
Speaker 1: its unusual appendages, but they have some theories. First, it
Speaker 1: seems clear that the ants tusks and horn were mainly
Speaker 1: used for catching prey. So here's one possible m O
Speaker 1: when it came to finding dinner. When a tasty insect
Speaker 1: passed nearby, the hell ance jaw tusks would flip the
Speaker 1: insect up and onto its horn, impaling it. Spearing prey
Speaker 1: does take a toll, though, which is probably why the
Speaker 1: hell ants horn was clad with metal. And if that
Speaker 1: isn't gruesome enough, researchers say this prehistoric insect might have
Speaker 1: had some vampire like tendencies to When the ants snagged
Speaker 1: its prey, its tusk like jaws clothes to form a gutter,
Speaker 1: which may have been a means of funneling the insects
Speaker 1: blood right down into the ant's gullet. The hell ants
Speaker 1: scientific known as Lingua mirmes vlady, was discovered in a
Speaker 1: chunk of amber that was nine million years old. Although
Speaker 1: it's unusual appendages were likely used to catch its food,
Speaker 1: researchers say they may have occasionally been used defensively. This
Speaker 1: is not the only insects sporting metal either. Some present
Speaker 1: day termite species actually have zinc and manganese in their mandibles. However,
Speaker 1: there are no modern ants similarly equipped. Today's episode was
Speaker 1: written by Melanie rad Zeki McManus, produced by Tristan McNeil
Speaker 1: and for more on this and other topics. Please visit
Speaker 1: us at how stuff works dot com.