Aphaenogaster archaica

Introduction

Aphaenogaster archaica is an extinct ant species known only from fossil specimens found in Rott, Germany, dating to the Late Oligocene epoch approximately 28-23 million years ago . Originally described as Myrmica archaica by Meunier in 1915,it was later transferred to the genus Aphaenogaster in 2007 . This species cannot be kept as it went extinct millions of years before humans existed. The fossil specimens from Rott represent one of nine confirmed Aphaenogaster species from that geological period, showing the genus was already diverse in Europe during the Oligocene .