Pheidole rasnitsyni

While originally described as occurring in Baltic amber, this species was actually from copal (less than 1 Ma) (Dubovikoff, personal communication, as reported by Perkovsky, 2016).

Nomenclature

 *  rasnitsyni. Pheidole rasnitsyni Dubovikoff, 2011: 255, figs. 1-5 (w.) Baltic Sea area (in copal).

Taxonomic Notes
Casadei-Ferreira, Chaul & Feitosa, 2019: A question remains regarding the identity of the fossil species Pheidole rasnitsyni. Dubovikoff (2011) proposed Pheidole rasnitsyni from pieces assumed to be truly Baltic amber, but he latter informed Perkovsky (2016: 117) that they were actually copal. Considering the putative young age of this inclusion (< 1 mya), it is possible that P. rasnitsyni is a junior synonym of a modern species. To accurately ensure the identity of this species, direct comparison with extant species would be necessary. However, in addition to the traditional limitations in observing details of morphology in resin inclusions, a second problem is that P. rasnitsyni is known only from minor workers. This makes it extremely difficult to determine the relationship between P. rasnitsyni and other extant species, since the morphology of minor workers in Pheidole is extremely conserved, especially in the Palaearctic species. In this scenario, although we think that P. rasnitsyni clearly belongs to Pheidole, we encourage a careful analysis of its identity in the future.