Dolichoderus vectensis
Dolichoderus vectensis is an extinct species of the Oligocene ant in the genus Dolichoderus. Described by Horace Donisthorpe in 1920, the fossils of the species were found in the United Kingdom.

Vincent Perrichot · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- DolichoderusPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At most 3.9 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 37.71 Mya and 33.9 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Dolichoderus vectensis on record, most of them in the Eocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
2 occurrences- Eocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
- Bouldnor Formation · Solent Group2
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The named rock units Dolichoderus vectensis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Dolichoderus vectensis and its relatives
EoceneWhere Dolichoderus vectensis and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
377 taxa- Aeolothrips jarzembowskii2 sites
- Anglogomphaeschna eocenica2 sites
- Aphidoidea2 sites
- Awightipsocus jarzembowskii2 sites
- Beraeodes vectensis2 sites
- Berosus barclayi2 sites
- Betulaphis kozlovi2 sites
- Bibio oligocenus2 sites
- Bibiodes confluens2 sites
- Bledius2 sites
- Camponotites cockerelli2 sites
- Chironomidae2 sites
- Chironomini2 sites
- Cicadellidae2 sites
- Coelosia virgata2 sites
- Coenagrionidae2 sites
- Colopha incognita2 sites
- Contacyphon insularis2 sites
- Culex protorhinus2 sites
- Diacorixites szwedoi2 sites
- Dicranomyia (Dicranomyia) brodiei2 sites
- Dicranomyia (Dicranomyia) excavata2 sites
- Dilophus andrewrossi2 sites
- Dynastinae2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Dolichoderus vectensis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
2 references- The wasps, bees and ants (Insecta: Vespida=Hymenoptera) from the Insect Limestone (Late Eocene) of the Isle of Wight, UK1
- British Oligocene Ants1
Each of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Dolichoderus vectensis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Vincent Perrichot
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Dolichoderus vectensis was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itDolichoderus through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Donisthorpe 1920