Trap-jaw ants, with their spring-loaded jaws and powerful stings, are among the fiercest insect predators, but they begin their lives as spiny, hairy, fleshy blobs hanging from the ceiling and walls ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Recently, researchers uncovered the adaptations that enable this superfast snapping in an elusive ...

Ants are among the strangest creatures on the planet, but one group of ants is stranger than most. The aptly-named 'trap-jaw ants' have gigantic mandibles that they can snap shut on their unsuspecting ...

The speedy mandibles of Strumigenys ants developed repeatedly throughout the world, explaining how evolution creates new abilities to help a species survive. Ants gather on a dewy peony bud. (Image ...

Few potential victims stand a chance against the formidable mandibles of a trap-jaw ant. In conflicts between predators and prey, speed is a decided advantage, and evolution has given these insects an ...

video: The animation shows the changes in form as the trap-jaw mechanism becomes more divergent from the ancestral form. The jaws (yellow) develop small projections that can latch onto the labrum ...

A member of the Myrmoteras genus of trap-jaw ants, with mandibles deployed. Steve Shattuck Imagine you’re crawling along the forest floor, idly searching for a bit of fungus to chow down on, when out ...

An aggressive type of trap-jaw ant with a mighty bite is gaining ground in the U.S. southeast, new research finds. The species, Odontomachus haematodus, is native to South America, but it seems to ...

Few victims stand a chance against the formidable mandibles of a trap-jaw ant. In conflicts between predators and prey, speed is a decided advantage, and evolution has given these insects an edge with ...

It's not much to look at in the beginning. This is the first larval phase of a trap-jaw ant emerging from its egg. New research published in the journal Myrmecology News finds that trap-jaw ants ...

Trap-jaw ants, with their spring-loaded jaws and powerful stings, are among the fiercest insect predators, but they begin their lives as spiny, hairy, fleshy blobs hanging from the ceiling and walls ...