By Stephanie Pappas, Live Science
Contributor | May 16, 2017 02:14pm ET
An ant named after the fierce,
carnivorous dinosaur Tyrannosaurus
rex
has been observed alive for the first time — and it failed to live up to the
dinosaur's reputation.
Tyrannomyrmex rex is a timid,
finicky eater, new research finds. The ants can, however, turn to cannibalism
in times of need.
Until now, these Asian
ants
were a complete mystery to science, despite being discovered more than 20 years
ago. No one had ever collected more than a single specimen, and no one had ever
observed a T. rex ant alive for an extended period of time. So when biologist
Mark Wong stumbled across a colony of T. rex ants while conducting an ant
diversity survey in Singapore, he knew he had something important.
He and his colleague Gordon Yong
from the National University of Singapore carefully collected the colony, which
consisted of 13 workers, as well as eggs, larvae and pupae (the liminal stage
between larva and adulthood). They then observed the ants in an attempt to
figure out what makes them tick. Because the study is the first of its kind,
everything the researchers discovered is new, Wong told Live Science.
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