Giant Ants in Ancient North America

Big insects once roamed the US. They were very big. Ants were the size of small birds 50 million years ago. They are thought to have crossed the arctic land bridge that once existed between Europe and the US. The Green River site in Wyoming has given up many new finds in the past.

Bruce Archibald of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia noted that the fossil was similar to one found in Germany. Only the queen of the Dorylus wilverthi species of ant living today reaches this size. Fittingly, the new ant has been named Titanomyrma lubei. Louis Lube found the specimen. While this ant is big for North America, big ants probably lived in other parts of the world because large fossils of other creatures have been found there.

Large ants only live a tropical climate in the present so North America was tropical millions of years ago. It is a mystery how they crossed the temperate Arctic region then. For brief periods this area became quite warm, up to 8 degrees Celsius, though not tropical. Bursts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from sediment was the culprit. With two sources for ancient giant ants now known it may be possible to identify where they originated.

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Science

Small Island Throws Up Large Bird

An Indonesian island is home to fossils of a giant stork. This is the little island where the tiny humanoid hobbit was found. It is a wonderful place for exploration and scientific discovery. Animals who lived there range from dwarf elephants to giant lizards and rats.

The giant stork lived on the island at about the same time Aboriginals populated Australia. A leg bone shows the 6 feet tall bird was a marabou stork weighing about 16 kilograms. It couldn't fly. Bones were found in the Liang Bua cave where skeletons of the hobbit were found.

These creature got to the island then became cut off from mainstream evolution. The island has never been joined to the primary landmass. Findings prove that the "island rule" is valid. This theory holds that animals trapped on a small island will change size in order to survive in particular niches. Large mammals become smaller and small warm blooded animals grow larger. The stork was originally quite small but with less competition it increased in size.

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Humans Wiped Out Australia's Megafauna

Humans destroy more things in the environment than climate change. This is especially the case in Australia where over the last 50,000 years people have wiped out the county's megafauna. Before Aboriginals arrived flightless birds, large reptiles and giant marsupials lived a carefree existence.

Humans slaughtered the large animals in a very short period of time. More accurate dating of bones shows that megafauna died out abruptly. When the giant creatures were in large numbers there is no evidence of human tools. After the Diprotodon, Australia's largest marsupial, large kangaroos and flightless birds died out stone tools appeared. Accurate dating shows they did not exist at the same time even though they were found together at certain locations. When humans became settled the large animals were gone. The odd thing is that humans and megafauna must have coexisted for at least 5,000 years. But this is a very narrow window to find evidence of both living side by side.

This gives weight to the theory that the arrival of modern Man in the Americas caused the demise of the mammoth. Though there is a problem with the American story. Megafauna "ruled" during the ice age which occurred 12,000 years ago. Its seems that when the ice ages ended life changed for the large animals. The climate was then well and truly against the survival of mammoths, short-faced bears, giant bison and sabor-toothed tigers. Some megafauna, however, continued to survive in Kansas, and Nebraska after the ice age period. The skeleton of a giant beaver has been found dating from 10,000 years ago. So Man could still be the culprit.

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