Zherichinius

Zherichinius is an extinct genus of ants in the subfamily Dolichoderinae known from fossils found in amber from the Middle Eocene of Sakhalin island Far eastern Russia and Bitterfeld, Germany. At the time of description the species Zherichinius horribilis and Zherichinius rapax were two of eight ant species known from Sakhalin fossils.

==History and classification== Zherichinius is known from two complete adult female fossils, the holotype specimens numbers PIN3387-35 and PIN3387-37, along with the partial legs of a third specimen in the same amber piece as PIN3387-35 and a poorly preserved worker, PIN3387-36, which was not described. At the time of the genus description all three specimens were residing in the Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, in Moscow. Both described specimens are worker caste adults preserved as inclusions in transparent chunks of Sakhalin amber. The amber specimen was recovered from deposits on Sakhalin island, in far eastern Russia during a 1972 collecting expedition. The expedition recovered amber from the beaches of the Okhotsk Sea at the mouth of the Naiba River and upstream on the banks of the river eroding out of exposures of Naibuchi Formation strata. One additional fossil has been reported from Bitterfeld amber, and has been listed by Dlussky and Rasnitsyn 2009 as undescribed.