DOI: 10.5061/dryad.5dv41nsht
title: Post K-Pg rise in ant and termite prevalence underlies convergent dietary specialization in mammals

description: Ants and termites are ubiquitous members of most modern terrestrial
 ecosystems. These insects act as agents of selection, driving ecological
 and evolutionary shifts in disparate groups across the tree of life.
 Obligate consumers of ants or termites, called myrmecophages, exhibit
 morphological adaptations such as lengthened tongues and reduced teeth
 that are associated with a bulk feeding strategy. Though a typifying
 feature of some mammal lineages, the macroevolutionary history of obligate
 myrmecophagy and its relationship to social insect evolution is unknown.
 We report large-scale patterns of myrmecophagous evolution through a
 synthesis of the social insect fossil record, ant and termite evolutionary
 history, and mammal natural history data spanning 4,099 species.
 Specialized ant and termite feeding has arisen at least 12 times in
 mammals and through multiple pathways; transitions to myrmecophagy stem
 from insectivorous and carnivorous ancestors. We recover one reversal out
 of social insect feeding, perhaps owing to food source stability or
 difficulty in regaining generalist features. Despite the contemporary
 ubiquity of social insects, their history suggests a recent capacity for
 specialist consumers. While both lineages originated in the Cretaceous,
 rising fossil prevalence of ants and termites and their acquisition of
 large colony sizes predominantly occurred in the Cenozoic.
description: # Post K-Pg rise in ant and termite prevalence underlies convergent
 dietary specialization in mammals Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.5dv41nsht](10.5061/dryad.5dv41nsht) ## Description of the
 data and file structure DATA MINING We gathered data for mammal diets and
 social insect colony sizes from published natural history observations.
 These diet and colony size data are housed
 in Supplemental_Data_1_MammalDiet.xlsx
 and Supplemental_Data_2_ColonySize.xls with relevant references. Pared
 down, csv formatted input data were derived from these datasets and
 analyzed along with published phylogenetic tree data. ### Files and
 variables #### File: R\_code\_R\_data.zip **Description:** An archive
 comprising all input data and relevant code necessary to recreate
 results.  `Ant_ColonySize.csv` – a simplified CSV file of ant colony size
 data derived from Supplemental_Data_2_ColonySize.xls.
 `Borowiec_etal_Dated.tre` – a published genus-level phylogeny of ants from
 Borowiec et al. 2025. `FullyCodedTree2.tre` – a published species-level
 phylogeny of mammals from Upham et al. 2019.
 `Mammal_dietstates_discrete_NOANOLIS.csv` – a simplified CSV file of
 mammal dietary states corresponding with references
 in Supplemental_Data_1_MammalDiets.xlsx. Dietary states are reduced to
 numerical codings of the following states: 1=myrmecophagy; 2=insectivory;
 3=carnivory; 4=omnivory; 6=herbivory.
 `MizumotoBourguignon2021_Tree_Newick.tre` – a published genus-level
 phylogeny of termites from Mizumoto & Bourguinon 2021.
 `SocialInsectAbundance.csv` – previously published social insect abundance
 data. Each row corresponds with either an ant or termite abundance value
 for a fossil locality from Barden & Engel 2021. Columns include: 
 "Age", the mean age of each locality, reported as millions of
 years before present (a negative value); "Percentage", the mean
 or sole reported value of either termite or ant abundance in each fossil
 locality, defined as the number of individual ant or termite specimens
 relative to all other arthropod specimens; "Taxon", a designator
 for each row to identify if the value is corresponds with ant or termite
 abundance. `Termite_ColonySize.csv` – a simplified CSV file of termite
 colony size data derived from Supplemental_Data_2_ColonySize.xls.
 `Vita_etal_R-code.txt `– sequential, annotated list of R-commands
 necessary to recreate analyses. #### File:
 Supplemental\_Data\_2\_ColonySize.xls **Description:** A dataset of
 maximum ant and termite colony sizes from published observations separated
 by tab. ##### Variables * Genus – the genus for which colony size data
 were obtained * Borowiec_etal_2025_tipMatch – the corresponding terminal
 name from the Borowiec et al. ant phylogeny. *
 Mizumoto_Bourguignon2021_tipMatch (in the Termite tab) – the corresponding
 terminal name from the Mizumoto & Bourguinon 2021 termite phylogeny. *
 MaxSizeRaw – the maximum observed colony size for each genus. * MaxSizeLog
 – log-transformed maximum colony size observations. * Ref – the
 corresponding reference for the observation #### File:
 Supplemental\_Data\_1\_MammalDiets.xlsx **Description:** A dataset of
 mammal diets derived from published observations. Empty cells denote
 fields that are not applicable for certain taxa. ##### Variables * Genus –
 the mammal genus * Species – the mammal species * Common name – applicable
 common name * Superorder – corresponding super order * Order –
 corresponding order * Suborder – corresponding suborder * Family –
 corresponding family * Obligate myrmecophage – designation of
 'y' indicating the taxon meets author criteria for myrmecophagy.
 Empty cells denote two cases of ambiguous preference, however these taxa
 are not included in the phylogeny used for analyses. * Preference? – any
 noted social insect dietary preference for each taxon * Diet References
 – the corresponding reference for the observation ## Code/software We
 performed analyses in R v4.4.3 with the following packages: phytools
 v2.4–4 ape v5.8–1 geiger v2.0.11 plotrix v3.8–4 circlize v0.4.16 ggplot2
 v3.5.1 We include a text file describing all code used in analyses. ##
 Access information Other publicly accessible locations of the data: * N/A
 Data was derived from the following sources: * References are included
 in Supplemental_Data_1_MammalDiets.xlsx
 and Supplemental_Data_2_ColonySize.xls.