FOSSIL AXTS. *73 



Old \Yorld tropics. Gcsomyrmc.r was supposed to be an extinct genus 

 till Ern. Andre (1892^) described a species (G. cliapcri) from Borneo. 

 In tbe same paper and from the same locality he described the type of 

 another interesting- Camponotine genus, Dimorphomyrmex jancti This 

 lias polymorphic workers with large reniform eyes and 8-jointed an- 

 tennae. Some years later ( 19051* ) Emery found a species (D. tlicryi. 

 Fig. 98) of this same genus in the Baltic amber. Rhopalomyrmex 

 (Fig. 91) resembles the neotropical Myrmelachista. It has lo-jointed 

 antennas, with 4-jointed clubs. Only a few species of the recent genera 

 Lasins, Formica and Camponotns have been described from the Baltic 

 amber. The workers of one 

 of the Camponoti, C. con- 

 strictits (Fig. 102), are pecu- 

 liar in possessing ocelli and 

 in having a thorax like For- 

 mica. Of this latter genus 

 Mayr described only a single 



species, F. flori, which is FIG. 102. Worker of Components constric- 



VCrv closely related to the '"* w ' t ' 1 oce "' and sellate thorax, from the 



Baltic Amber. (Mayr.) 



existing r. jusca. 



( )ur knowledge of the fossil ants of North America is insignificant. 

 Scudder (1890) described Lasius tcrrcus and a Myrmica sp. from the 

 Green River Oligocene, Camponotiis vctus and Liometopum pin^uc 

 from the White River Oligocene and Formica arcana, Doiichodcrns 

 oblitcratits and Aphccnogastcr longccva from the Quesnel formation, 

 but neither the descriptions nor the figures make it at all certain that 

 these ants are assigned to their proper genera. He also described and 

 figured (p. 606, pi. Ill, fig. 32) the wing of an ant as that of a Braco- 

 nid, Calvptitcs antediluvianus. Cockerell (1906) has described a 

 Ponera. hciidcrsoni from the Florissant shales but the size of the speci- 

 men shows that it cannot be a true Ponera. My own studies on the 

 Florissant ants are not yet completed. 



Very few ants are known from the Quaternary, or Pleistocene. Some 

 Camponotinae and Dolichoderinae are recorded by Handlirsch as having 

 been found in the interglacial deposits of Re, Italy by Benassi (1896) 

 and a number of unidentified species are enumerated from the copal, 

 an amber-like fossil resin found in several tropical countries (Africa, 

 Brazil, New Zealand, etc.). One of the earliest accounts of copal 

 ants is that of Blochs (1776) who describes and figures specimens of 

 what he^lls Formica saccharivora, salomonis, nigra and Formica sp. 

 Tn a firj| series of copal specimens from Zanzibar in the American 

 Museum of Natural History, I find well-preserved specimens belong- 



