Formicinae

The Formicinae are a subfamily within the Formicidae family containing ants of moderate evolutionary development.

Formicinae

Didier Descouens · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
FormicomorphaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 93 million years on record.

The record covers at least 93.9 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 626 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 2 of 626 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 1 of 626 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 345 of 626 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 38 of 626 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 191 of 626 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 7 of 626 occurrencesPleistocene — about 21 of 626 occurrences103–99 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences99–96 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences96–92 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences92–89 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences62–58 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences58–55 Mya — about 4 occurrences55–51 Mya — about 9 occurrences51–48 Mya — about 10 occurrences48–44 Mya — about 11 occurrences44–41 Mya — about 11 occurrences41–38 Mya — about 12 occurrences38–34 Mya — about 267 occurrences34–31 Mya — about 30 occurrences31–27 Mya — about 9 occurrences27–24 Mya — about 16 occurrences24–21 Mya — about 7 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 35 occurrences17–14 Mya — about 28 occurrences14–10 Mya — about 105 occurrences10–6.8 Mya — about 10 occurrences6.8–3.4 Mya — about 12 occurrences3.4–0 Mya — about 48 occurrences93.9 Mya11.7 ka103 Mya0 Mya

626 occurrences of Formicinae on record, most of them in the Eocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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

626 occurrences

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

41 formations

Upper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°EShanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°EFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WFlorissant — 38.93°N, 105.24°WBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WNiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°EKap København — 82.47°N, 23.66°WKap København — 82.45°N, 24.10°WKap København — 82.39°N, 24.18°WSalt — 47.69°N, 7.53°EEifel — 50.11°N, 6.82°EMessel — 49.93°N, 8.75°EKishenehn — 48.39°N, 113.70°WHachiya — 35.48°N, 137.11°EMiyajima — 36.98°N, 139.82°EBarstow — 34.95°N, 116.83°WBarstow — 34.94°N, 116.83°WGreen River — 38.90°N, 109.20°WGreen River — 39.72°N, 108.14°WLatah — 46.53°N, 116.79°WPoole — 50.67°N, 2.09°WKizi — 45.48°N, 137.21°EHarudi — 23.72°N, 68.84°ERaritan — 40.47°N, 74.32°WAustralian Creek — 52.97°N, 122.50°WCockfield — 34.35°N, 92.78°WImuruk Volcanics — 65.88°N, 163.13°WHydrobienkalk — 50.04°N, 8.24°ELa Toca — 19.55°N, 70.61°W

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The named rock units Formicinae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 17 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 420 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Formicinae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Formicinae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

5,513 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 183 sites for Formicinae, and this reads all of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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

118 references

Each of the 626 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. 106 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Formicinae

Credit
Didier Descouens
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itFormicomorpha through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Latreille 1802