Dolichoderus mesosternalis

Dolichoderus mesosternalis is an extinct species of Eocene ant in the genus Dolichoderus. Described by William Morton Wheeler in 1915, a fossilised worker of the species was found in the Baltic amber.

Dolichoderus mesosternalis

Vincent Perrichot · CC BY-SA 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.

Eocene — about 3 of 3 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 3 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences35–34 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38.21 Mya33.4 Mya

3 occurrences of Dolichoderus mesosternalis 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

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.

Dolichoderus mesosternalis and its relatives

Eocene

Where Dolichoderus mesosternalis and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

1,576 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Dolichoderus mesosternalis, 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

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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Dolichoderus mesosternalis

Credit
Vincent Perrichot
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Dolichoderus mesosternalis was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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. (Wheeler 1915)