GoKawiilStudy links ant diversification to asteroid that ended dinosaur era
Researchers studying ant genomes report that the group's rapid diversification into roughly 15,000 known species accelerated around 66 million years ago, coinciding with the mass extinction event caused by an asteroid impact. The scientists attribute part of this genetic diversification to bursts of transposable elements, sometimes called 'jumping genes,' which resemble retroviruses in behavior.