.22" Fossil Ant (Formicidae) - Cereste, France

This is a .22" long fossil ant (order Hymenoptera, family Formicidae) collected from an Oligocene-aged shale deposit near Cereste in Southern France. The order Hymenoptera is comprised of the sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants.

This is part of an old collection that we recently acquired. The collection includes a variety of insect fossils from around Southern France, collected over a span of 50 years by a woman with PhDs in paleontology and pharmacology.