Mfwangano Island ant colony (Miocene of Kenya)

Where: Kenya (0.5° S, 34.0° E: paleocoordinates 1.6° S, 31.9° E)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Burdigalian (20.4 - 16.0 Ma)

• New total-fusion K-Ar ages indicate that all of the fossiliferous formations that make up the lower part of the Early Miocene Kisingiri sequence in western Kenya at Rusinga Island, Mfwangano Island, and Karungu were deposited during an interval of less than 0.5 million years at c. 17.8 Ma ago.

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: dry floodplain; lithified lithology not reported

• From paleosols

Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils

Preservation: replaced with calcite

Collected by Dr. and Mrs. Leakey; reposited in the BMNH, MCZ

• Holotype and some paratypes deposited in British Museum (Natural History). Other paratypes deposited in MCZ and in the Centre for Prehistory and Paleontology, Coryndon Museum, Nairobi, Kenya.

Primary reference: E. O. Wilson and R. W. Taylor. 1964. A fossil ant colony: new evidence of social antiquity. Psyche 71:93-103 [M. Clapham/M. Clapham]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 138938: authorized by Matthew Clapham, entered by Matthew Clapham on 03.02.2013

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Insecta
 Hymenoptera - Formicidae
Oecophylla leakeyi n. sp. Wilson and Taylor 1964 weaver ant