How ants came to the old world

New research carried out on the genomes of insects from 192 locations have revealed that tropical fire ants traveled the world on 16 century ships.

“A lot of these ships, particularly if they were going somewhere to pick up commerce, would fill their ballast with soil and then they would dump the soil out in a new port and replace it with cargo,” said University of Illinois entomology professor and animal biology department head Andrew Suarez, an author on the study. “They were unknowingly moving huge numbers of organisms in the ballast soil.”

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Story: University of Illinous at Urbana-Champaign | Photo: Julie McMahon