A handout picture of the new species of ants. (Reuters)

London, Sept. 16: They call it the “ant from Mars”, a living member of the earliest representatives of the ants.

Scientists have found a new species of blind, subterranean, predatory ant in the Amazon rainforest that is likely a descendant of the very first ants to evolve. The oldest living lineage of ants was unveiled today by a team at the University of Texas at Austin.

The new ant is named Martialis heureka, which translates roughly to “ant from Mars”, because it has a combination of characteristics never before recorded.

It is adapted for dwelling in the soil, is two to three millimetres long, pale, and has no eyes and large mandibles, which the team suspects it uses to capture prey. The ant also belongs to its own new sub-family, one of 21 sub-families in ants.

This is the first time that a new sub-family of ants with living species has been discovered since 1923 (other new subfamilies have been discovered from fossil ants).

The work once again underscores how biologists have a long way to go to understand all the secrets of such abundant and ecologically important insects, and how crucial it is to protect natural habitats.

“This discovery hints at a wealth of species, possibly of great evolutionary importance, still hidden in the soils of the remaining rainforests,” writes Christian Rabeling and his co-authors in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.