Oecophylla kraussei (Dlussky et Rasnitsyn), 2024

Archibald, S. Bruce, Mathewes, Rolf W. & Perfilieva, Ksenia S., 2024, Fossil weaver ants (Hymenoptera, Formicidae, Oecophyllini) of the early Eocene Okanagan Highlands of far-western North America, The Canadian Entomologist (e 2) 156, pp. 1-16 : 10-11

Oecophylla kraussei (Dlussky et Rasnitsyn) n. comb.

Fig. 6

Formicidae : Douglas and Stockey 1996, pp. 1145, 1149, fig. 15.

Camponotites kraussei : Dlussky and Rasnitsyn 1999, pp. 547, 548, fig. 2.

Camponotites krausei [sic]: Dlussky and Rasnitsyn 2003, pp. 418, 419, fig. 10.

Camponotites kraussei : Dlussky et al. 2011, pp. 452–455, fig. 4.

Camponotites kraussei : referred to as Oecophylla : Perfileva et al. 2017, p. 399.

Camponotites kraussei : Archibald et al. 2018, pp. 224, 225, fig. 12G.

Camponotites kraussei referred to as Oecophylla : Perfileva 2021, pp. 78, 83, 85.

Material. Holotype UWBM-78047 ( Fig. 6 ): a queen preserved in dorsal aspect with an almost complete body, one rather complete forewing, and one forewing missing the apical portion, and lacking hind wings from the Klondike Mountain Formation near Republic, Washington, United States of America. Collected by Rob Krausse, 1994.

Emended diagnosis. Queen differs from those of all other species of Oecophylla except O. longiceps Dlussky by head elongate [both about 1.2× longer than wide; all others as wide or wider than long]. The species differs from O. longiceps by compound eyes larger, longer, positioned at anterior margin of head capsule [small, positioned mid-head]; by mandibles protruding ca. slightly> third head length [ca. slightly less than half].

Description. See Dlussky and Rasnitsyn (1999).

Remarks. When Steinbach (1967) published the genus name Camponotites Steinbach , his description was cursory, he provided no illustration, and he did not provide a diagnosis as required by the IZCN for names of nominal taxa published after 1930 ( International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature 1999, ICZN article 13.1.1). The name was then unavailable. He also did not explicitly designate a type species as required by article 13.3, although Camponotites silvestris Steinbach is implied by monotypy.

Unaware of this rather obscure paper, Dlussky (1981) separately erected Camponotites as a collective group, writing it in quotation marks throughout this work. He provided a diagnosis and description and designated a type species, although these cannot be done for a collective group by ICZN articles 13.3.2, 42.3.1, 66, and 67.14, where they are replaced by a definition. Although Dlussky’ s diagnosis did not distinguish the genus from others as would be necessary for a nominal taxon (article 13.1.1), it did function as a definition, which can be understood as (paraphrased from the Russian): those fossil ant species that possess the combination of wing character states listed by Dlussky distinctive of the formicine tribes Plagiolepidini , Camponotini , and Oecophyllini , but that cannot be assigned to any of these by preservation. This intention was made explicit by Dlussky and Rasnitsyn (1999, p. 548, and 2003, p. 413) and Dlussky et al. (2011, p. 455).

When Dlussky et al. (2011) discovered the previous use of the name Camponotites by Steinbach, they considered it both a homonym and a synonym, transferring C. silvestris Steinbach to their collective genus, which they treated as Camponotites Steinbach. However , as “ Camponotites Steinbach ” was unavailable, the collective group is Camponotites Dlussky , which does not compete for priority with Steinbach’ s nominal genus name (ICZN article 23.7.2, and see article 67.14). Treatments of Camponotites by other authors following the above are discussed by Dlussky et al. (2011).

With the transfer of “ Camponotites ” kraussei to Oecophylla , Camponotites consists of C. silvestris Steinbach , C. steinbachi Dlussky et al. , and C. xiejiaheensis Hong. “ Camponotites ” macropterus Dlussky is now Oecophylla macroptera (Dlussky) (see Perfilieva 2015 and Perfilieva 2021).

Figures

Figure 6. Oecophylla kraussei (Dlussky and Rasnitsyn), holotype UWBM-78047 from Republic, WA: A, photograph; B, drawing, and C, drawing of left forewing. Scales 5 mm.