''Gracilidris'' is a
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
of
dolichoderine ant
Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period. More than 13,800 of an estimated total of ...
s with nocturnal behaviour; thought to have gone extinct 15-20 million years ago, they have been found in
Paraguay
Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...
,
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, and
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
and were described in 2006.
For the first time, It was recorded that the dolichoderine ant genus ''Gracilidris'' and its sole species, ''G. pombero'' were found in the Colombia Amazon basin
The single existing fossil in
Dominican amber
Dominican amber is amber from the Dominican Republic derived from resin of the extinct tree '' Hymenaea protera''.
Dominican amber differentiates itself from Baltic amber by being nearly always transparent, and it has a higher number of fossil inc ...
makes the genus a
Lazarus taxon
In paleontology, a Lazarus taxon (plural ''taxa'') is a taxon that disappears for one or more periods from the fossil record, only to appear again later. Likewise in conservation biology and ecology, it can refer to species or populations tha ...
. The only known extant species, ''
Gracilidris pombero'', nests in small
colonies
In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...
in the soil. These ants have been described only very recently and little is known about them.
Species
* †''
Gracilidris humiloides''
(Wilson, 1985)
* ''
Gracilidris pombero''
Wild & Cuezzo, 2006
References
External links
*
Dolichoderinae
Ant genera
Hymenoptera of South America
Aquitanian genus first appearances
{{Dolichoderinae-stub