Ant Taxonomy SubFamily- Brownimeciinae

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About SubFamily Brownimeciinae

Brownimecia was an extinct ants’ genus, the sole genus in the subfamily Brownimeciinae and the tribe Brownimeciini. Fossils of the single recognized species, Brownimecia clavata, are comprehended from North America’s Middle Cretaceous. The genus is 1 of various New Jersey ants defined from Middle Cretaceous Amber’s waste.

Brownimecia specie was originally established in the subfamily Ponerinae, until it was moved to its subfamily in 2003; it can be differentiated from other ants due to its distinctive sickle-like mandibles and other morphological characteristics that make this ant unique among the Formicidae. The ant is also tiny, estimating 3.43 millimetres (0.135 in), and a stinger is present in almost all the samples. The morphology of the mandibles proposes a heightened level of feeding specialization.

The subfamily Brownimeciinae includes the single genus Brownimecia which exclusively has 1 species, Brownimecia clavata. It was defined in 1997 after a fossilized sample was compiled from Cretaceous amber from New Jersey and was originally established in the subfamily Ponerinae. Barry Bolton subsequently categorized the species into its subfamily in 2003.

Brownimeciinae Scientifi Clasiffication

Genus Name: Brownimecia
Binomial Authority: Grimaldi, Agosti & Carpenter
Type Species: Brownimecia clavata
No. Species: 1
Classified: 1997

History and classification

Brownimecia is well known from 3 adult fossils:

1 – The holotype ordered by Yale Goldman — The next number AMNH NJ-667 defined this specimen.
2 – The paratype
3 – And a 3rd fossil was described in 2005.

These Type specimens reside in New York (American Museum of Natural History).

All the represented specimens are worker caste grown-up females maintained as inclusions in transparent pieces of amber. The amber samples were retrieved from the South Amboy Fire Clay sediments, parts of the Raritan Formation. New Jersey amber has been dated to about 90 to 94 mya, setting it in the Turonian of the Late Cretaceous. A study of the amber design suggests it originated as cupressaceous resins deposited in lagoons and saltwater swamps along the Cretaceous eastern seaboard. There are several ant species defined from New Jersey amber. One of these species is Brownimecia clavata.

Other important species to mention would be
1 – Sphecomyrma freyi
2 – Kyromyrma neffi.
3 – Baikuris casei
4 – Sphecomyrma mesaki

The type fossils were first investigated by paleoentomologists

• James Carpenter
• David Grimaldi
• And Donat Agusti.

The team’s 1997 type report of the new genus and species was publicized in the journal American Museum Novitates. They forged the genus term as a patronym commemorating the ant systematist William L. Brown, Jr. who co-defined the first Cretaceous ant genus and species Sphecomyrma freyi. The precise epithet clavata was picked as a reference to the characteristic clubbed antennae in the workers.

The 3 paleoentomologists positioned the new genus into the actual ant subfamily Ponerinae, without tribal work, established on a slight compression of the gaster. They also mentioned several characteristics shared with ants of the amblyoponine class, then a component of Ponerinae. The workers have genal spurs on the more inferior edge area beneath the small synthesized eyes. Workers also have long slim mandibles, as do some amblyoponine genera.

Placement within the Ponerinae did not change until myrmecologist Barry Bolton published a revision of the subfamily in 2003. In this file, the subfamily was taught as a paraphyletic grouping, and several of the genera integrated were moved into separate subfamilies, including amblyoponins and brownimecia. Thanks to the unique morphological properties found in Brownimecia, Bolton erected the new subfamily Brownimeciinae for the genus. Bolton shows that their toothless, sickle-shaped mandibles are unusual among ants and are consistently associated with dulotistic or slavery behavior in extant genera. Unlike stem-assembly ants such as sphecomyrmines, the shafts of Brownimecia workers are more elongated like those of crown-assembly ants. In his 2007 phylogenetic review of Formicidae, entomologist Philip Ward shows the likelihood that Brownimecia is a crown-wide genus and places the subfamily in the informal “poneroid” group of his philology.

Full List of Brownimeciinae Ants

Subfamilies Of Ants