Sphecomyrma freyi

Sphecomyrma is an extinct genus of ants which existed in the Cretaceous approximately 79 to 92 million years ago. The first specimens were collected in 1966, found embedded in amber which had been exposed in the cliffs of Cliffwood, New Jersey, by Edmund Frey and his wife. In 1967, zoologists E. O. Wilson, Frank Carpenter and William L. Brown, Jr. published a paper describing and naming Sphecomyrma freyi. They described an ant with a mosaic of features—a mix of characteristics from modern ants and aculeate wasps. It possessed a metapleural gland, a feature unique to ants. Furthermore, it was wingless and had a petiole which was ant-like in form. The mandibles were short and wasp-like with only two teeth, the gaster was constricted, and the middle and hind legs had double tibial spurs. The antennae were, in form, midway between the wasps and ants, having a short first segment but a long flexible funiculus. Three additional species, S. canadensis, S. mesaki and S. nexa, were described in 1985, 2005, and 2024, respectively.

Sphecomyrma freyi

Wilson, E. O.; Carpenter, F. M.; Brown, W. L. · 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
SphecomyrmaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At most 11 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 93.9 Mya and 83.6 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 3 of 3 occurrencesLate Cretaceous94–94 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences94–93 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences93–93 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences93–93 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences93–92 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences92–92 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences92–91 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences91–91 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences91–91 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences91–90 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences90–90 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences90–90 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences90–89 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences89–89 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences89–88 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences88–88 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences88–88 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences88–87 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences87–87 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences87–86 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences86–86 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences86–86 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences86–85 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences85–85 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences85–85 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences85–84 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences84–84 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences84–83 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences94.4 Mya83.1 Mya

3 occurrences of Sphecomyrma freyi on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

3 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

2 formations

Raritan — 40.47°N, 74.32°WRaritan — 40.43°N, 74.33°WMagothy — 40.45°N, 74.21°W

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The named rock units Sphecomyrma freyi has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Sphecomyrma freyi and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Sphecomyrma freyi and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

157 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Sphecomyrma freyi, 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

3 references

Each of the 3 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 content1

Picture of Sphecomyrma freyi

Credit
Wilson, E. O.; Carpenter, F. M.; Brown, W. L.
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Sphecomyrma freyi 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 itSphecomyrma through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Wilson and Brown 1967