36 
Psyche 
[Vol. 92 
During my own study I encountered a single worker in the 
Museum of Comparative Zoology collection that fits the L. neotro- 
picus habitus closely. Although this specimen has the front part of 
the head missing, there is little distortion in the remainder of the 
head and body. An apparent acidopore can be seen, placing the 
species in the Formicinae rather than in the Dolichoderinae. And 
indeed, the specimen is closely similar to Camponotus branneri of 
Brazil, sharing the same distinctive elongated body form, mesotho- 
racic constriction, petiole, tapered neck, and bulging eyes located 
toward the rear of the head. C. branneri is also similar to C. santosi 
of Cuba and C. sexguttatus of Central America and the West Indies. 
The status of neotropicus will not be settled definitively until 
additional and better preserved neotropicus workers are available. 
In the meantime, the evidence as well as biogeographic probabilities 
make it prudent to place the fossil specks provisionally in Campo- 
notus and to remove the genus Leptomyrmex from the Dominican 
amber faunal list. 
Discussion 
There has been a remarkable retreat of the Dolichoderinae from 
the West Indies since Dominican amber times, in other words, since 
the late Oligocene or early Miocene. Four genera ( Azteca , Doli- 
choderus, Hypoclinea, Monads) have disappeared entirely from the 
Greater Antilles. Only two ( Iridomvrmex , Tapinoma ) have per- 
sisted to the present, while a single genus, Conomvrma, has invaded 
more recently. The dominant arboreal ants are no longer Azteca ; 
according to W. L. Brown (personal communication), who has col- 
lected intensively over much of the Dominican Republic, the more 
abundant genera include Pseudomvrmex, Crematogaster, Para- 
cryptocerus, and Camponotus . In this important respect the West 
Indian fauna mirrors the general decline of the Dolichoderinae in 
North and South America, Europe, and Asia, possibly in conjunc- 
tion with the advance of Crematogaster as a competitor of Irido- 
myrmex (Brown, 1973). 
Acknowledgments 
I am grateful to Robert E. Woodruff for the loan of his collection 
of Dominican amber ants and to William L. Brown for advice and 
