Solenopsis

Fire ants are several species of ants in the genus Solenopsis, which includes over 200 species. Solenopsis are stinging ants, and most of their common names reflect this, for example, ginger ants and tropical fire ants. Many of the names shared by this genus are often used interchangeably to refer to other species of ant, such as the term red ant, mostly because of their similar coloration despite not being in the genus Solenopsis. Both Myrmica rubra and Pogonomyrmex barbatus are common examples of non-Solenopsis ants being termed red ants.

Solenopsis

Uncredited · Public Domain · 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
SolenopsidiniPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 303 million years on record.

The record covers at least 303.7 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 306 Mya to 0 Mya.

Carboniferous — about 2 of 41 occurrencesPermian — about 1 of 41 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 1 of 41 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 41 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 41 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 41 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 41 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 41 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 41 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 41 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 41 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 41 occurrencesOligocene — about 21 of 41 occurrencesMiocene — about 14 of 41 occurrencesPliocene — about 0 of 41 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 41 occurrences312–302 Mya — about 1 occurrence302–291 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences281–271 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences271–260 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences250–239 Mya — about 1 occurrence42–31 Mya — about 9 occurrences31–21 Mya — about 13 occurrences21–10 Mya — about 13 occurrences10–0 Mya — about 3 occurrences303.7 Mya11.7 ka312 Mya0 Mya

41 occurrences of Solenopsis on record, most of them in the Oligocene. 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

41 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

5 formations

Salt — 47.69°N, 7.53°EConemaugh — 39.42°N, 79.33°WWandrawandian — 34.88°S, 150.46°EMazantic Shale — 17.15°N, 92.70°WHachiya — 35.48°N, 137.11°E

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The named rock units Solenopsis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 30 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Solenopsis and its relatives

Oligocene

Where Solenopsis and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.

Found in the same rock

779 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Solenopsis, 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

11 references

Each of the 41 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. 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 content2

Picture of Solenopsis

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

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 itSolenopsidini through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Westwood 1840