Napakimyrma paskapooensis

LaPolla and Barden (2020) - The Paskapoo Formation in Alberta, Canada is of Paleocene age, and has yielded a variety of fossil arthropod specimens (Wighton 1980; Kevan et al. 1981; Baker and Wighton 1984; Wighton and Wilson 1986). Mitchell and Wighton (1979) first reported on a possible ant specimen from the Paskapoo Formation, but over the subsequent decades no further study was completed on the fossil. Here we describe this ant specimen. The specimen is of particular interest with respect to fossil ants because the age of the Paskapoo Formation has been estimated to be of Tiffanian to late Paleocene (60.2–56.0 million years old) (Fox 1990; Lerbekmo and Sweet 2000), placing it well within a critical time period after the Cretaceous—within the 23-million-year long gap between the last window into ant evolution in the Cretaceous and the heretofore earliest Cenozoic ants known from the Fur Formation.

Distribution
This taxon was described from the.

Biology
The paleoclimate of the Alberta Plains of the Paleocene was likely warm-temperate, for which Fox (2011) speculated a similar modern habitat would be the current humid coastal plain of the southeastern United States. Based on a collection of largely aquatic adult and larval insect fossils, Mitchell and Wighton (1979) suggested the Blackfalds site where the fossil ant was discovered was a forested backswamp.

Nomenclature

 * † paskapooensis. †Napakimyrma paskapooensis LaPolla & Barden, 2018: 436, fig. 2 (w.) ALBERTA, CANADA.