[1] Along with other well preserved insect fossils, the Messelepone specimens were collected from layers of the Lutetian Messel pit World Heritage Site.

The area is a preserved maar lake which initially formed approximately 47 million years ago as the result of volcanic explosions.

[2] At the time of description, the holotype queen and paratype male specimens were preserved in the Senckenberg Research Station Messel fossil collections.

[1] The fossils were described by Gennady Dlussky and Sonja Wedmann in a 2012 paper on the poneromorph ants of Messel, with both the genus and species named in it.

[1] Messelepone is one of five extinct genera from three subfamilies which have species described from Messel Formation fossils by Dlussky and Wedmann in 2012.