Insect Order Hymenoptera Fossils Gallery - Ants, Bees and Wasps
Insect Fossils
 
Ant, Bee and Wasp Fossils - Insect Order Hymenoptera


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Insect Fossils
Of related interest:
Fossil Amber (Resin)
 


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.