Technomyrmex caritatis

Introduction

Technomyrmex caritatis is an extinct ant species known only from Dominican amber, dated to the Miocene epoch (roughly 15-20 million years ago) . It was described in 1999 by Brandão and Baroni Urbani based on a single worker preserved in amber fragment MCCB 0060,collected in February 1995 by J. Caridad . Only the worker caste has been described . This fossil shows distinctive features: a long scape (the first antenna segment), two pairs of setae (bristles) on the clypeus with none in the center, one pair of long setae on the vertex (top of head), and no setae on the mesosoma . Taxonomically, its placement in the genus Technomyrmex is uncertain, Bolton (2007) noted that it lacks key diagnostic traits of the genus (petiole structure, gastral base), and now it is considered incertae sedis (uncertain position) within Technomyrmex .