Hymenopteran
insects, include bees, ants, and a diverse insect taxa referred to as wasps and
are believed to have first appeared in the Triassic more than 200 million years
ago. Many Hymenoptera are extremely social insects. For example, honeybees and
ants have developed regimented social systems in which members are divided into
worker, drone, and queen castes.
Interestingly,
such social hymenoptera may live together in nests or hives of many thousands
of individuals, all descended form a single queen. In this case, for the non-sexual
insects, the assurance that their genes will persist depends on the nurturing
of their many siblings, an entirely different construct of evolution than is normally
the case for animals. Female worker bees will often kill their brothers giving
favor to their sisters with whom they share 75% of their DNA.
A
Gallery of Fossil Ants,
Bees and Wasps
| | | | |
Family
Formicidae Flying ant in Colombian fossil amber | Upper
Cretacious to Lower Jurassic ant in shale from Liaoning
China Province, Peoples Republic of China | Various
ants in amber | Two
10 mm stingless bees in death embrace in amber. | |