Ant paleontology has evolved as a subdiscipline
of ant systematics ever since the
latter’s origins in the mid-19th century.
Among the first ant fossils to receive serious
attention were those found in Baltic amber
(14, 15), which we now know originated in
the early Oligocene ['30 million years ago
(mya)]. Except for indicating that ant distributions
have changed dramatically, the
Baltic amber ant fossils are strikingly
modern—so much so, in fact, that at least
one author was inspired to suggest that they
might be fakes (16). Most other significant
sources of Tertiary ants reveal a similarly
modern ant fauna, including the North
American Florrisant (Colorado) and Green
River (Wyoming) shales (Oligocene, '30
mya) (17), the Dominican amber (Miocene,
'20 mya) (e.g., ref. 18), and others listed by Grimaldi and Agosti (ref. 1, table 1). In the
Eocene as in the present, ants comprise a
significant proportion of the insect biota,
and ant species are easily assigned to extant
subfamilies and, in most cases, to extant
genera as well. Whatever the story of the
ants’ rise to dominance, it obviously unfolded
before the deposition of these Tertiary
fossil remains.