CREATION BY EVOLUTION 



statements we may turn to a study of the ants, which form 

 one among a great many sources of inferences in support of 

 evolution. 



As a group, the ants are not so favorable for a study of 

 evolution as their cousins the bees and wasps, because they 

 constitute an unusually compact and homogeneous natural 

 family and one which seems to have completed or nearly 

 completed its evolution at an earlier date in geological time. 

 This difference is indicated by the fact that all the six thou- 

 sand or more known species, subspecies, and varieties of ants 

 are eminently social, or live in organized colonies, whereas 

 most of the wasps and bees are still solitary insects. There 

 are also other reasons, which will be given later, for believ- 

 ing that the ants arose from a very ancient wasp-like stock 

 and attained their present relatively high specialization a long 

 time ago. We may now review some of the inferences 

 derived from the study of their palaeontology, morphology, 

 distribution, taxonomy, and ethology, which all agree in 

 indicating not only that the ants have been subject to evolu- 

 tion but that this evolution has been of a particular character 

 or pattern. 



Many ants have been preserved in a fossil state in forma- 

 tions of Tertiary age, but none have yet been found in earlier 

 formations. A small number of species have been found 

 in Eocene deposits, which were laid down at the beginning 

 of Tertiary time, but a much greater number have been 

 collected from amber (a kind of resin) of Lower Oligocene 

 age, found near the Baltic Sea, and from Miocene shales 

 in Europe and in the United States, at Florissant, near Pike's 

 Peak, Colo. Several species of ants have been found in 

 Sicilian amber, which is also of Miocene age. I have studied 

 no less than 10,000 specimens from the Baltic amber and 

 at least 8,000 from the Florissant shales. Many of those in 



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