Ceratomyrmex
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Ceratomyrmex Temporal range: Early Cenomanian |
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| Holotype worker | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Formicidae |
| Subfamily: | †Sphecomyrminae |
| Genus: | †Ceratomyrmex |
| Species: | †C. ellenbergeri |
| Binomial name | |
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Ceratomyrmex ellenbergeri Perrichot, Bo, & Engel, 2016 |
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Ceratomyrmex is an extinct genus of ant in the Formicidae subfamily Sphecomyrminae, and is one of only four genera placed in the tribe Haidomyrmecini. The genus contains a single described species Ceratomyrmex ellenbergeri and is known from several Late Cretaceous fossils which have been found in Asia.
Ceratomyrmex is known from a total of four adult fossils. The holotype is specimen number "NIGP164022" of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology; the adult specimen "IGR.BU-002" of the University of Rennes is designated as paratype. The two additional specimens described but not designated as paratypes were residing in the private collection of Sieghard Ellenberger, Germany. The described specimens are of worker caste adults which have been preserved as inclusions in transparent chunks of Burmese amber. The amber specimens were recovered from deposits in Kachin State, in Myanmar. Burmese amber has been radiometrically dated using U-Pb isotopes, yielding an age of approximately 98.79 ± 0.62 million years old, close to the Aptian – Cenomanian boundary, in the earliest Cenomanian.
The fossils were first studied by paleoentomologists Vincent Perrichot, Wang Bo and Michael Engel with the groups 2016 type description of the new genus and species being published in the journal Current Biology. The genus name Ceratomyrmex was coined as a combination of the Greek suffix "myrmex" which means "ant" and is a commonly used suffix in genus names, keratos, meaning "horn" in reference to the unique head modification. The specific epithet ellenbergeri is a patronym honoring Sieghard Ellenberger who allowed study of several of the specimens.Ceratomyrmex is one of several ant genera described from Burmese amber, the others being Burmomyrma, Camelomecia, Gerontoformica, Haidomyrmex, Myanmyrma, and Zigrasimecia.
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