Formica

Searched as Formica pinguis oeningensis. The Paleobiology Database treats Formica as the accepted name.

Formica is a genus of ants of the subfamily Formicinae, including species commonly known as wood ants, mound ants, thatching ants, and field ants. Formica is the type genus of the Formicidae, and of the subfamily Formicinae. The type species of genus Formica is the European red wood ant Formica rufa. Ants of this genus tend to be between 4 and 8 mm long.

Formica

Richard Bartz, Munich Makro Freak · CC BY-SA 2.5 · 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
FormiciniPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At most 1.2 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 12.8 Mya and 11.63 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Miocene — about 3 of 3 occurrencesMiocene13–13 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences13.3 Mya11.13 Mya

3 occurrences of Formica on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

1 formation

Upper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°E

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

Formica and its relatives

Miocene

Where Formica and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

3,447 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 79 sites for Formica, 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

1 reference

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 content2

Picture of Formica

Credit
Richard Bartz, Munich Makro Freak
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itFormicini through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758