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.

[1] Sakhalin amber has been attributed a range of geological ages, with Vladimir Zherikhin in 1978 suggesting dates between 59 and 47 million years old.

However research published in 1999 on the Naibuchi Formation, in which Sakhalin amber is directly preserved, gives a Middle Eocene age based on geological and paleobotanical context.

[2] The Sakhalin amber forest had a variety of plants living in a mixed coastal swamp, river, and lake environment.

The bogs were surrounded by Osmunda, Nymphaeaceae and Ericaceae plants, while Taxodium, Alnus, Salix, and other trees populated the forest.

Bitterfeld represents a section of the Eocene Paratethys Sea, and the amber that is recovered from the region is thought to be redeposited from older sediments.

[5] The Sakhalin amber fossils were first studied by paleoentomologist Gennady Dlussky of the Russian Academy of Sciences, with his 1988 type description for the genus, and species published in the Paleontologicheskii Zhurnal.

[1] The genus name was coined as a patronym honoring the Russian paleoentomologist and coleopterist Vladimir Zherikhin, who had died in 2001, and was often called a "living encyclopedia" by friends due to his knowledge and memory.

Other ant subfamilies are represented by a single species each, the aneuretine Aneuretellus deformis, the formicine Chimaeromyrma brachycephala, the myrmicine Aphaenogaster dlusskyana, and the ponerine Protopone primigena.