National Geographic has a story about tiny fossil collector. The tiny collectors are harvester ants. They uncovered more than 6000 micro fossils as they built their mounds, The micro fossils included small teeth and jaw fragments - all at most a few millimeter wide. These micro fossils are believed to be parts of ten new mammal species, including nice species of rodent and a new insect eating shrew-like mammal.
Across the western United States, the industrious insects known as harvester ants are often cast as pests. These ants gather seeds and live in large sediment mounds, and they can deliver nasty stings to creatures they perceive as threats. A mound can last for decades and, to the chagrin of some property owners, the land up to 30 feet away is protectively picked clean of vegetation.
But as these ants construct their mounds, they do something remarkable: act as the world’s smallest fossil collectors.
The colonies clad their mounds with a half-inch-thick layer of small rocks about the size of beads, possibly to protect the structures from wind and water erosion. To find material for this cladding, the ants venture more than a hundred feet from the mound. In addition to bits of gravel, they gather up any tiny fossils and archaeological artifacts that they happen upon.
