page_title: Haidomyrmex
section_title: History and classification
hierarchical_section_title: Haidomyrmex / History and classification
caption_attribution_description: English: Closeup of the Haidomyrmex cerberus holotype head. specimen BMNHP20182
context_page_description: Haidomyrmex is an extinct genus of ants in the formicid subfamily Haidomyrmecinae, and is one of nine genera placed in the subfamily Haidomyrmecinae. The genus contains three described species Haidomyrmex cerberus, Haidomyrmex scimitarus, and Haidomyrmex zigrasi. All three are known from single Late Cretaceous fossils which have been found in Asia. H. cerberus is the type species and Haidomyrmex the type genus for the tribe Haidomyrmecini.
context_section_description: Haidomyrmex, is known from three solitary adult fossil specimens which are composed of mostly complete adult females which have been preserved as an inclusions in transparent chunk of  Burmese amber. The amber specimens entombing H. scimitarus, and H. zigrasi were recovered from deposits in Kachin State, 100 kilometres (62 mi) west of Myitkyna town in Myanmar.  In contrast, type specimen of H. cerberus was collected in the early 1900s from an unspecified location in Myanmar.  Burmese amber has been radiometrically dated using U-Pb isotopes, yielding an age of approximately 99 million years old, close to the boundary between the Aptian and Cenomanian.  The amber is suggested to have formed in a tropical environment around 5° north latitude and the resin to have been produced by either an Araucariaceae or Cupressaceae species tree.  The mandibles of Haidomyrmecini genera are unique among ants in having a movement along the vertical plane.  All other species with a trap-jaw type mandible structure show movement along the horizontal plane.  Barden and Grimaldi suggest that the mandibles may have been capable of opening up to between 140° and 180°, if 0° is a closed position with the mandible tips near the clypeus.   The resulting gape that results from the open position is nearly twice the head capsule diameter.  The long legs and antennae are both features seen in arboreal ant species, and it has been suggested that the species may have nested in preexisting cavities in trees.
  The holotype of H. cerberus, specimen number "BMNH 20182" was deposited in the Natural History Museum Burmese amber collection in London.  Specimen number AMNH Bu-FB80 is the holotype for H. scimitarus and was part of an amber collection purchased from Federico Berlöcher by the American Museum of Natural History.  Unlike the other two species, at the time of description, the holotype for H. zigrasi, JZC-BuXX, was residing in the private collection of James Zigras and only loaned to the paleoentomologists for study.
   Despite its collection in the early 1900s fossils of the genus were not described until the Russian paleoentomologist Gennady M. Dlussky studied H. cerberus nearly 80 years later.  Dlussky published the 1996 type description of the new genus and species in the Paleontological Journal.  The genus name Haidomyrmex was coined as a combination of the Greek word Haidos meaning "Hades the realm of the dead" and Myrmica, a genus of ants.  The specific epithet cerberus refers to the guardian of the underworld Cerberus.  The second and third species in the genus were described in a single paper by Phillip Barden and David Grimaldi, both of the American Museum of Natural History, published in the journal American Museum Novitates in 2012.  The specific epithet scimitarus is a reference to the similar shape of the species mandibles and a scimitar while the epithet zigrasi is a patronym honoring James Zigras for his loan of specimens to study.  Haidomyrmex is one of five genera in Haidomyrmecini, the other four being Ceratomyrmex, Linguamyrmex, Haidomyrmodes and Haidoterminus, .
caption: Haidomyrmex cerberus holotype workers head
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