English: A comparison of the archetypal ant as hypothesized by the authors before the discovery of Sphecomyrma (e.g., Brown, 1954; Brown and Wilson, 1959), with Sphecomyrma itself. The fine details of body shape are made the same in this drawing for convenience but do not enter into the main features to which phylogenetic speculation has been directed. This comparison is presented to indicate the degree of precision of earlier phylogenetic reasoning. Examination o the Sphecomyrma specimens proved the hypothesis wrong in essentially only one major respect: we had guessed that an ant-like mandible developed before an ant-like petiole, but the reverse proved to be the case.