Leptomyrmex neotropicus

Introduction

Leptomyrmex neotropicus is an extinct ant species known only from fossils in Dominican amber from the Miocene epoch, about 15-26 million years ago . Workers were small and slender, with long legs and antennae, giving them a spider-like appearance. They measured about 4.6 to 5.6 mm in total length, had light-colored bodies, and almost no hair . The genus today is found only in wet forests of Australia, New Guinea, and New Caledonia, making this Caribbean fossil a biogeographical puzzle . This species represents a stem lineage of Leptomyrmex, meaning it branched off before modern species evolved, and helps scientists understand ant evolution . One fossil shows a worker with a distended abdomen, indicating food storage behavior that is ancestral to the genus .