Mammals have developed some unusual eating habits over the past 100 million years, but a new study has uncovered the surprising lengths to which some have gone to satisfy one of the more peculiar—a taste for #ants and #termites.

Mammals independently evolved specialized adaptations for exclusively feeding on ants and termites at least 12 times since the #Cenozoic era began, roughly 66 million years ago.

The #convergent #evolution among #mammals toward this dietary strategy—called #myrmecophagy—emerged following the K-Pg #extinction and fall of non-avian dinosaurs, which reshaped ecosystems and set the stage for ant and termite colonies to rapidly expand worldwide.

Over 200 mammal #species are known to eat ants and termites today, yet only about 20 true myrmecophages—such as giant anteaters, aardvarks and pangolins—have evolved traits like long sticky tongues, specialized claws and stomachs, and reduced or missing teeth, to efficiently consume thousands of these insects daily as their sole food source.

#evolution #ecology #biology
https://phys.org/news/2025-07-mammals-evolved-ant-eaters-dinosaur.html

Vida et al. (2025):
https://academic.oup.com/evolut/article-abstract/79/10/2315/8155241

Kilara Waris et al. estimated global spatiotemporal patterns of #WoodDensity and their relationships with #ModernClimate and #Paleoclimate.

#Angiosperms | #Cenozoic | #GlobalVariation | #Phylogeny | #TraitEvolution

https://doi.org/10.1093/jpe/rtaf003

#Sanidine from the Fish Canyon Tuff is essential to understanding the pace of events in the #Cenozoic

High potassium, quickly erupted and cooled, and old enough to have accumulated sufficient 40Ar from radioactive decay. These crystals calibrate neutron flux for 40Ar/39Ar dating. The 28.2 Ma age of the FCT sanidine has been fine-tuned using #Milankovitch cycles of other ash beds in stable sedimentary basins.

photo from MinDat.org by Dan Polhemus

#MinCup25 #Geochronology #DeepTime #Colorado

#NewSpecies!
New cenozoic sea snail from #netherlands just came in:

Favartia jansseni

Treatment: http://treatment.plazi.org/id/D34B3691-CAE8-4FB4-9492-05EFDF71FCD3
Publication: http://doi.org/10.5252/geodiversitas2024v46a15
#Geodiversitas #FavartiaJansseni

#FAIRdata
#science #OA #openaccess #biology #taxonomy #ecology #biodiversity #nature #wildlife #conservation #animals #malacology #snails #seasnail #cenozoic #fossils #paleo