Zigrasimecia ufv-11, 2023

Abstract, Júlio Cezar Mário Chaul, 2023, A revision of the Cretaceous ant genus Zigrasimecia Barden & Grimaldi, 2013 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: † Zigrasimeciinae), Zootaxa 5325 (3), pp. 301-341 : 331

Zigrasimecia ufv-11

and Zigrasimecia JGD-09

( Fig. 20 )

Five worker specimens are likely conspecifics and compose morphospecies Zigrasimecia ufv-11. Images for all specimens are uploaded on Antweb. The specimens share similar shapes of the head, mesosoma, and petiole (petiole apparently badly damaged in ANTWEB1047907), and all have small, curved, decumbent setae on the head. Currently, a species based on a worker specimen and deposited in the Yunnan Key Laboratory for Palaeobiology, Institute of Palaeontology, Yunnan University, Kunming, China, is being described and images were presented to one of the authors (Yuhui Zhuang, personal communication). The species is similar to Zigrasimecia ufv-11 and could be conspecific or very close to it, for that reason, I refrain from describing the morphospecies here. Zigrasimecia ufv-11 was added to both dichotomous and the multi-entry keys, as it will soon be described and is satisfactorily characterized.

One specimen (ANTWEB1047052) deposited at JGDC (added to Antweb as morphospecies “JGD-09”), could possibly belong to morphospecies Zigrasimecia ufv-11, but the available images were not sufficient to ascertain that.

Examined material. Hukawng Valley, Kachin Province, Myanmar; Lower Cenomanian (ca.98.79 ± 0.62 Ma). Four workers (ANTWEB104703, ANTWEB104710, ANTWEB104709, and ANTWEB1047907) [ MBC]. One worker (ANTWEB1047053) [ JCMCC].

Figures

FIGURE 20. Morphospecies Zigrasimecia ufv-11. A and B, head in full-face and anterior views, respectively, of specimen ANTWEB1047053, black triangle indicates curved, decumbent setae on frons and vertex; C, profile view of right side of body of specimen ANTWEB1047903. Scale bar 0.2 mm in A, and 0.5 mm in C.