Gesomyrmex pulcher

Gesomyrmex pulcher is an extinct species of ant in the subfamily Formicinae, known from a single Eocene fossil found in Europe. The fossil is a compression-impression specimen preserved in soft sedimentary rock of the Lutetian Messel pit, a World Heritage Site whose brown coals and oil shales preserve many insects, fish, birds, reptiles and land mammals from a maar lake that formed about 47 million years ago after volcanic explosions. The holotype, catalogued as SMF MeI 10999 in the Senckenberg Research Station Messel collections, is a partly preserved adult queen lying with her folded wings along her back. She measures about 4.8 millimetres in length, with a head about 0.95 millimetres long and slender antennae. The species was described in 2009 in Zootaxa by Gennady Dlussky, Torsten Wappler and Sonja Wedmann, and its Latin epithet means beautiful. It is one of eight Gesomyrmex species known from European fossils, while the six living species of the genus live in tropical Asia.