Pachycondyla parvula

Did You Know?

• The antennae scape extends towards the rear margin of the head but does not extend past it.
• The eyes are rather small and placed slightly forward of the head's midpoint.
• The petiole is rounded in side view, with a high, thick scale.

History and classification

The species was originally described from six compression-impression fossils preserved in soft sedimentary rock of the Lutetian Messel Formation, collected from the Messel pit World Heritage Site. This formation consists of brown coals, oil shales, and bituminous shale, preserving a diverse lagerstätten of insects, fish, birds, reptiles, and terrestrial mammals. The site is a preserved maar lake that formed about 47 million years ago from volcanic explosions. The holotype, specimen SMF MeI 10638, along with a paratype and four additional ants, are housed in the Senckenberg Research Station Messel fossil collections. Gennady Dlussky and Sonja Wedmann described the fossils in a 2012 paper on Messel poneromorph ants, initially naming the species P. minuta in reference to the small adult size. However, that name had already been used in 2010 for a living Mexican ant, now called Rasopone minuta, making P. minuta a junior homonym. A 2015 paper proposed the replacement name Pachycondyla parvula, from the Latin for small or tiny. This species is one of six Pachycondyla described from Messel in the same 2012 paper, the others being P. eocenica, P. lutzi, P.? messeliana, P. petiolosa, and P. petrosa. An additional eight fossil species have been described from North America, Europe, and Asia.