''Zatania electra'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

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 22 ...

in the subfamily

Formicinae The Formicinae are a subfamily within the Formicidae containing ants of moderate evolutionary development. Formicines retain some primitive features, such as the presence of cocoons around pupae, the presence of ocelli in workers, and little ...

known from three possibly

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

fossils found on

Hispaniola Hispaniola (, also ; es, La Española; Latin and french: Hispaniola; ht, Ispayola; tnq, Ayiti or Quisqueya) is an island in the Caribbean that is part of the Greater Antilles. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and th ...

. ''Z. electra'' is one of several ''

Zatania ''Zatania'' is a genus of ants in the subfamily Formicinae. The genus is known from Central America and the Greater Antilles. The generic name is derived from Greek ''za'', "very", ''tany'', "long", referencing its elongated body features. Spe ...

'' species found in the

Greater Antilles The Greater Antilles ( es, Grandes Antillas or Antillas Mayores; french: Grandes Antilles; ht, Gwo Zantiy; jam, Grieta hAntiliiz) is a grouping of the larger islands in the Caribbean Sea, including Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and ...

History and classification

''Zatania electra'' is known from a group of three fossil insects which are entombed in pieces of

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 incl ...

. The amber was produced by the extinct ''

Hymenaea protera ''Hymenaea protera'' is an extinct prehistoric leguminous tree, the probable ancestor of present-day ''Hymenaea'' species. Most neotropical ambers come from its fossilized resin, including the famous Dominican amber. ''H. protera'' once grew in ...

'', which formerly grew on

, across northern South America, and up to southern Mexico. The specimen was collected from an undetermined amber mine in fossil-bearing rocks of the

Cordillera Septentrional The Cordillera Septentrional is a mountain range that runs parallel to the north coast of the Dominican Republic, with extensions to the northwest as Tortuga island in Haiti, and to the southeast through lowlands to where it rises as the Sierra d ...

mountains of northern

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares wit ...

. The amber dates from the

Burdigalian The Burdigalian is, in the geologic timescale, an age (geology), age or stage (stratigraphy), stage in the early Miocene. It spans the time between 20.43 ± 0.05 annum, Ma and 15.97 ± 0.05 Ma (million years ago). Preceded by the Aquitanian (sta ...

stage of the Miocene, based on studying the associated fossil

foraminifera Foraminifera (; Latin for "hole bearers"; informally called "forams") are single-celled organisms, members of a phylum or class of amoeboid protists characterized by streaming granular Ectoplasm (cell biology), ectoplasm for catching food and ot ...

, and may be as old as the Middle Eocene, based on the associated fossil

coccoliths Coccoliths are individual plates or scales of calcium carbonate formed by coccolithophores (single-celled phytoplankton such as ''Emiliania huxleyi'') and cover the cell surface arranged in the form of a spherical shell, called a ''coccosphere''. ...

. This age range is due to the host rock being secondary deposits for the amber, and the Miocene as the age range is only the youngest that it might be. At the time of description, the

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

worker and

paratype In zoology and botany, a paratype is a specimen of an organism that helps define what the scientific name of a species and other taxon actually represents, but it is not the holotype (and in botany is also neither an isotype nor a syntype). Of ...

male were preserved in the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

collections while the paratype worker was part of the

Museum of Comparative Zoology A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

collections. The trio of ant fossils were first studied by entomologists John Lapolla, Robert Kallal, and Seán Brady with their 2012

type description A species description is a formal description of a newly discovered species, usually in the form of a scientific paper. Its purpose is to give a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it differs from species that have be ...

of the new species being published in the journal ''

Systematic Entomology ''Systematic Entomology'' is a scientific journal covering the field of systematic entomology, published by the Royal Entomological Society of London. Having begun in 1932 as '' Proceedings of the Royal Entomological Society of London, Series B ...

''. The

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''electra'' is derived from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

word ''electra'' which means "amber", referencing the species preservation in amber.

Description

The coloration of both the workers and the males are hard to determine, being either a uniform reddish or dark brown. There are upright standing setae on the gaster, notum, propodeum, head and scapes, but it is hard to determine if fine pubescence is present on the head or antennae. The head is an elongate oval in outline with the rear corners rounded and indistinct. The eyes are small and notably convex while the mandibles have five possible teeth. The basal segment of the antennae, the scape, is elongated, reaching back past the rear margin of the head. The males have a slightly rectangular heads that are wider than long, and dominated on each side by convex large compound eyes. The mandibles have large apical teeth and possibly small denticles, similar to males of the living species ''

Zatania gibberosa ''Zatania'' is a genus of ants in the subfamily Formicinae. The genus is known from Central America and the Greater Antilles. The generic name is derived from Greek ''za'', "very", ''tany'', "long", referencing its elongated body features. Spe ...

''. As in the workers, the antennae have elongated scapes that extend beyond the rear margin of the head and have short setae on them. The genitalia are similar to the species ''

Zatania cisipa ''Zatania'' is a genus of ants in the subfamily Formicinae. The genus is known from Central America and the Greater Antilles. The generic name is derived from Greek ''za'', "very", ''tany'', "long", referencing its elongated body features. Spe ...

'' and ''

Zatania gloriosa ''Zatania'' is a genus of ants in the subfamily Formicinae. The genus is known from Central America and the Greater Antilles. The generic name is derived from Greek ''za'', "very", ''tany'', "long", referencing its elongated body features. Spe ...

'', having narrow long parameres.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q20720629 Formicinae Hymenoptera of North America Insects described in 2012 Fossil ant taxa