Titanomyrma lubei

†Titanomyrma lubei Temporal range: Ypresian, Early Eocene K Pa Eo Ol Mi Pl ↓ Green River Formation, Sweetwater County, Wyoming, United States
Holotype of T. lubei rufous hummingbird for scale
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Hymenoptera
Family:	Formicidae
Subfamily:	Formiciinae
Genus:	Titanomyrma
Species:	†T. lubei
Binomial name
†Titanomyrma lubei Archibald, Johnson, Mathewes & Greenwood, 2011

Titanomyrma is a fossil genus of giant ant. The latest species to be discovered, Titanomyrma lubei, was described in 2011, when a 49.5 million year old fossilized winged queen ant was found in Wyoming. This fossil is the first body of a giant ant found in the Western Hemisphere. The presence of Titanomyrma in North America is considered to indicate "the first reported cross-Arctic dispersal by a thermophilic insect group".

Distribution

This taxon was described from Green River Formation, Sweetwater County, Wyoming, United States (Ypresian, Early Eocene).

Nomenclature

The following information is derived from Barry Bolton's Online Catalogue of the Ants of the World.

• †lubei. †Titanomyrma lubei Archibald, Johnson, Mathewes & Greenwood, 2011: 3680, figs. 2, 3a,b (q.) U.S.A (Eocene).

References

• Archibald, S. B., Mathewes, R. W., Aase, A. 2023. Eocene giant ants, Arctic intercontinental dispersal, and hyperthermals revisited: discovery of fossil Titanomyrma (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Formiciinae) in the cool uplands of British Columbia, Canada. The Canadian Entomologist 155, e6, 1-11 (doi:10.4039/tce.2022.49).
• Archibald, S.B., Johnson, K.R., Mathewes, R.W., Greenwood, D.R. 2011. Intercontinental dispersal of giant thermophilic ants across the Arctic during early Eocene hyperthermals. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 278(1725): 3679–3686 (doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.0729).