The specimens were collected from a number of amber mines in fossil-bearing rocks of the Cordillera Septentrional mountains, northern Dominican Republic.

The fossils were first studied by entomologist Edward O. Wilson of the Harvard University, who published his type description of the new species in the journal Psyche in 1985.

Individual examples of phoretic F myrmenema are preserved in a dauer stage that was possibly carried in the ants' abdominal intersegment membranes.

[5] Another amber specimen with 23 pseudococcid scale insects, twenty female and nymphs and three males, associated closely with nine A. alpha workers has been described.

A. alpha is separated from the other species in the group by the outline of the propodeum, the length of the antennae scape and in the density of the hairs covering the body.