Acropyga glaesaria is known from six fossil insects which are
inclusions in transparent chunks of
Dominican amber. The amber dates from at least the
Burdigalian stage of the Miocene, based on studying the associated fossil
foraminifera and may be as old as the Middle Eocene, based on the associated fossil
coccoliths. This age range is due to the host rock being secondary deposits for the amber, and the Miocene the age range is only the youngest that it might be. The
holotype amber specimen, number DR-16-603, entombs an
alate queen associated with the only known
Electromyrmococcus inclusus, and one
paratype queen, in a separate amber specimen with the
E. reginae holotype, are currently preserved in the
American Museum of Natural History in New York. A single specimen in the collections at the
Naturmuseum Senckenberg in
Frankfurt, Germany preserves two more paratype queens and the two known paratype males, all in association with the holotype of
E. abductus. The fossils were first studied by entomologist John LaPolla of the
Smithsonian Institution. LaPolla's 2005
type description of the new species was published in the journal
Transactions of the American Entomological Society. The
specific epithet glaesaria is derived from the
Latin for "of amber" in reference to the preservation of the fossils. Prior to the species formal description in 2005 the fossils had been attributed to the genus
Brachymyrmex and in the 2001 description of
Electromyrmococcus specimens of
A. glaesaria were suggested to represent several different
Acropyga species. The generic placement was stabilized with a review and clarification of the scope of
Acropyga by LaPolla in 2004, while the suggestion of multiple species based on morphology was shown to be an artifact of distortion and preservation in the amber. The association of
A. glaesaria and the
Electromyrmococcus species is one of the oldest examples of
trophobiosis. Modern
Acropyga are thought to be fully reliant on mealy bug species as their source of food and reproductive only emerge from the nest during the mating flight, each carrying a seed bug in their mandibles. == Description ==