[1] However a queen reported from Upland temperate shales in British Columbia raised questions on the exact thermophilic nature of the genus.

The Titanomyrma lubei holotype was discovered by Louis Lube at DMNS locality 784, the Farson Fish Beds, in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, USA.

[7] Archibald, Mathewes, & Aase (2023) reported a Titanomyrma queen from the Allenby Formation, and noted the range extension for Formiciinae into the Eocene Okanagan Highlands, as the subfamily was previously considered a strictly thermophilic ant group.

If the distortion was lateral, then compression to bilateral symmetry yielded an adult length of approximately 3.3 cm (1.3 in), placing it the same range as Formicium berryi and F. brodiei, known only from wings, and suggested as possible males.

Conversely stretching the fossil to bilateral symmetry results in a larger 5 cm (2.0 in) length estimate, placing it as comparable to queens of T. lubei and T.

It is surmised that it must have sprayed formic acid as a defence, and either ate fresh food, in the manner of leafcutter ants (which eat only the fungi they personally cultivate in their nests), or was carnivorous.

[9] T. lubei is related to Formiciinae specimens previously found in Germany and in the Isle of Wight in southern England dating from the same period.

T. lubei was suggested to support the hypothesis that during the Eocene (56 to 34 million years ago), conditions such as land bridges and hot spells existed which permitted the spread of ancient warmth-loving insects and other forms of life from Europe to North America or vice versa, which would not have occurred had the temperature been uniformly cool throughout.

[1][2][6] However in 2023, a Titanomyrma queen was reported from the Eocene Okanagan Highlands, a noted upland subtropical to temperate mountain area.