by Mindy Weisberger, Senior
Writer | March 11, 2016 01:12pm ET
About 18 million years ago, army ants
that were adapted to living underground — and had lost much of their sight —
returned to the surface and regrew the parts of their brains related to vision,
a new study has found.
But the brain benefits didn't end there.
Not only did the ants recover a set of previously underused brain structures,
but their overall
brain size increased as well. In turn, this brain-size increase enhanced
the ants' sensory input capabilities as well as their processing centers to handle
a more complex environment.
I can see clearly now
The army-ant subfamily Dorylinae dates to
about 78 million years ago, and most of these ants live underground at least
part of the time; their eyes are either very small or completely absent. In the
study, the researchers noted that this subfamily descended from a large-eyed
ancestor whose vision capabilities and vision-related brain regions dwindled
over time — a transition that occurred repeatedly within the ant lineage.
But what happened to one branch of the
army-ant family was extremely unusual: After living underground for 60 million
years, army ants from the Eciton genus headed back into the light,
and over time, their brains changed dramatically as they adapted to living on
the surface.
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