US EditionAnteaters Have Evolved More Than a Dozen Times
GLOBAL, JUL 21 – Mammals independently evolved to rely solely on ants and termites at least 12 times, with only about 20 species fully specialized, according to a recent evolutionary study.
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Anteaters Have Evolved More Than a Dozen Times
You might not find ants and termites tasty, but plenty of animals have throughout evolutionary history: It turns out that ant-eating mammals have evolved independently more than 12 times over the past 66 million years. But how did species who exclusively dine on termites, ants, or both emerge so many times? Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . To clear up this mammalian mystery, researchers traced the evolutionary …
As Ants Took Over, Mammals Evolved 12 Times to Eat Them
The combined weight of all the planet's ants and termites outpaces that of all living wild mammals. That wasn't the case in the Cretaceous, when they accounted for less than 1% of Earth's insects. As their numbers changed, some mammals reinvented themselves in order to eat them—at least a...
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