Researchers from Karlsruhe's Natural History Museum found the 3-millimeter-long (0.118 inch) insect in the Amazon rainforest in 2007, and hope it will shed light on the early evolution of ants.

"It's by far the most spectacular find of my 26-year career," said museum biologist Manfred Verhaagh on Tuesday.

Scientists from Karlsruhe originally found an unidentified species of ant of a similar type in the Brazilian rainforest in 2003. However, due to an accident in the laboratory, the insect dried up, making further research impossible, Verhaagh said.

Last year a separate team from the museum's research body was in the forest investigating fungus when they stumbled upon the tiny insect, and named it "Martialis heureka".

In a series of experiments, the elephants first explored the mirror -- reaching behind it with their trunks, kneeling before it and even trying to climb it -- gathering clues that the mirror image was just that, an image.

That was followed by an eerie sequence in which the animals made slow, rhythmic movements while tracking their reflections. Then, like teenagers, they got hooked.

All three conducted oral self-exams. Maxine, a 35-year-old female, even used the tip of her trunk to get a better look inside her mouth. She also used her trunk to slowly pull her ear in front of the mirror so she could examine it -- "self-directed" behaviors the zookeepers had never seen before.

Moreover, one elephant, Happy, 34, passed the most difficult measure of self-recognition: the mark test. The researchers painted a white X on her left cheek, visible only in the mirror. Later, after moving in and out of view of the mirror, Happy stood directly before the reflective surface and touched the tip of her trunk to the mark repeatedly -- an act that, among other insights, requires an understanding that the mark is not on the mirror but on her body.

The ants are named after their characteristically long jaws, which they use to hurl unfamiliar neighbours from their nests, cripple prey, or deliver a brutal bite to anything they consider a threat.

Employing the same high-speed imaging methods as those used to film flying bullets, an American research team now shows that the jaws can move at exceptional speeds. Peak velocities exceed 180km/h (110mph)

"This is really by far and away the fastest recorded animal limb movement," said lead researcher Sheila Patek, of the University of California, Berkeley, who worked with ants from Costa Rica.

"The ants' jaws are relatively short, but they deliver such a powerful bite because they can accelerate so quickly. It's simple physics."

Earth is losing species faster than at any time for at least 65 million years, when it was hit by an enormous asteroid that wiped out thousands of animals and plants, including the dinosaurs.

Scientists say the rate at which species are going extinct is between 100 and 1000 times greater than the normal "background" extinction rate - and it's all because of human activity.

The call for action comes from some of the most distinguished scientists in the field, including Georgina Mace of the UK Institute of Zoology, Peter Raven, head of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St Louis and Robert Watson, chief scientist at the World Bank.

"For the sake of the planet, the biodiversity science community had to create a way to get organised ... and together with one clear voice advise governments on steps to halt the potentially catastrophic loss of species already occurring," Dr Watson said.

The creatures have the remarkable ability to return to their nest using a direct route rather than retracing their outbound path.

To perform this feat, the ants need to judge directions and distances. But while they rely on the sky for orientation, their means for measuring distance had remained a mystery.

To investigate, scientists from the University of Ulm, Germany, and the University of Zurich, Switzerland, set some ants off on a foraging trip along a straight tunnel, but once they had reached the food their legs were manipulated to either make them longer by adding stilts, or shorter by partially amputating them.

The ants were then returned to the same spot to begin their homeward-bound journey. However, the researchers discovered the ants with longer legs overshot the nest entrance, while those with the shortened legs undershot it.

Some descriptions from witnesses sound like the plot to a horror movie -- water roiling with tentacles; otherworldly creatures suddenly launching into the air from beneath the surface; nightfall bringing to the surface vicious predators that slip back into the depths at daybreak, like vampires of the sea.

A Humboldt squid can grow to the size and weight of a hockey player. So, imagine Todd Bertuzzi with bulging eyes, eight arms, two tentacles, three hearts, a beak for a mouth, a brain wrapped around his esophagus and gullet with a willingness -- nay, eagerness -- to dine on his own kind every other meal, and you get a sense of how the squid has earned such a fearsome reputation.

Mexican fishermen call the creature el diablo rojo -- the red devil.

The traps are woven together using hairs stripped from the ants' host plant and reinforced with fungus, producing a platform with pitted holes. "The ants are always hiding just under the holes, waiting with their mandibles open. When an insect arrives they immediately grab the legs and antennae," says Orivel. This pulling immobilises the victim, stretching it out as though being tortured on a mediaeval rack.

Worker ants then clamber over their helpless prey, biting and stinging until the victim is paralysed or dead. The carcass is then chopped into small pieces while still on the rack or, more likely, carried back to the leaf pouch to be devoured.