Wikipedia:WikiProject Insects/ant task force/community sandboxes/sandbox2/Camponotus cockerelli

Camponotus cockerelli is an extinct species of Carpenter ant in the subfamily Formicinae known from a group of Late Eocene compression fossils found on the Isle of Wight.

History and classification
C. cockerelli was described from compression fossils found in thin layers and concretions of micrite from the "insect bed" and older stratum of the Bembridge Marls. The marls are exposed at a number of locations along the north coast of the Isle of Wight in England. Part of the Bouldnor Formation, the marls have been dated to the Late Eocene in age. The marls have not preserved any Symphyta hymenopterans such as Tenthredinoidea species, suggesting that the paleotemperature of the marls was as warm or possibly warmer than either the Baltic amber or Florissant Formation forests, while the presence of the wasp family Scelionidae suggests generally mesic moisture conditions.

The species was first described by Horace Donisthorpe in 1920 based on two specimens. The species was placed by Donisthorpe into the genus Leucotaphus.

In the time since the initial descriptions of the species, several more males and a small group of isolated wings have been found, and the group of seven body fossils plus eight wing fossils were studied by Dlussky and Perfilieva and published in 2014. The fossils showed a spectrum of wing morphology that bridged all three species, and as such they deemed both D. ovigerus and E. emeryi to be synonyms of the first published species name D. britannicus. However the propodeum is different than that of Dolichoderus species, being rounded in profile, and as such the species was retained in the genus Emplastus.