page_title: La Toca Formation
section_title: Paleontological significance
hierarchical_section_title: La Toca Formation / Paleontological significance
caption_attribution_description: English: Dorsal view of the Cephalotes integerrimus holotype worker. Dominican amber, Burdigalian; Dominican Republic, Hispaniola Staatliches Museum fur Naturkunde, specimen SMNSDO3326
context_page_description: The La Toca Formation is a geologic formation in the northern and eastern part of the Dominican Republic. The formation, predominantly an alternating sequence of marls and turbiditic sandstones, breccias and conglomerates, is renowned for the preservation of insects and other arthropods in amber, known as Dominican amber. The formation is dated to the Burdigalian to Langhian stages of the Miocene period.
context_section_description: La Toca Formation is one of the formations of the Dominican Republic where Dominican amber is found. The amber is known for the many types of insects and other arthropods it contains and even mammalian hair, a leptodactylid frog and a gilled mushroom have been discovered in the Dominican amber. Decades of study have led to an increased understanding of the invertebrate terrestrial fauna of the subtropical Early Miocene. Several genera have been described on the basis of these inclusions in resin from the fossil Hymenaea protera tree and the many fossils found in the amber provided a unique insight in the paleobiology of the Caribbean of the time. Of the 82 genera of spiders in Dominican amber, one third are extinct and about thirty percent are congeneric with extant taxa.
caption: Cephalotes integerrimus from El Valle locality of La Toca Formation
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