Odontomachus
Odontomachus is a genus of ants commonly called trap-jaw ants found in the tropics and subtropics throughout the world.

Johnsonwang6688 · 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
- PoneriniPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At least 16 million years on record.
The record covers at least 16.9 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 20.45 Mya to 0 Mya.
7 occurrences of Odontomachus on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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
7 occurrencesThese 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
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The named rock units Odontomachus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Odontomachus and its relatives
MioceneWhere Odontomachus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
280 taxa- Pheidole3 sites
- Camponotus2 sites
- Crematogaster2 sites
- Dolichoderus2 sites
- Gnamptogenys2 sites
- Hypoponera2 sites
- Paratrechina2 sites
- Platythyrea2 sites
- Strumigenys2 sites
- Tapinoma2 sites
- Abaristophora (Antipodiphora) domicamberae1 site
- Ablabesmyia electrohispaniolana1 site
- Acanthostichus hispaniolicus1 site
- Achrysocharoides1 site
- Acicnemis fossilis1 site
- Acrocyrtus1 site
- Aenictus1 site
- Agelaia electra1 site
- Alumeda antilliana1 site
- Alumeda dominicana1 site
- Alumeda nigricans1 site
- Americhernes1 site
- Amphinemura himberii1 site
- Anochetus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Odontomachus, 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
5 references- Fossil Odontomachiti ants from the Dominican Republic (amber collection Stuttgart: Hymenoptera, Formicidae. VII: Odontomachiti)2
- Ameisen aus dem Kopal von Celebes2
- The mid-Miocene Zhangpu biota reveals an outstandingly rich rainforest biome in East Asia1
- A new trap-jaw ant species of the genus Odontomachus (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Ponerinae) from the Early Miocene (Burdigalian) of the Czech Republic1
- A preliminary review of Colombia ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) preserved in copal1
Each of the 7 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 Odontomachus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Johnsonwang6688
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- 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 itPonerini through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Latreille 1804