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Nesomyrmex in Costa Rica are inconspicuous elements of the arboreal ant fauna. The workers are furtive and non-aggressive. They forage singly and are thinly scattered on vegetation. They nest in small plant cavities and may opportunistically nest in ant-plants such as Cecropia and Cordia. They are often captured in sweep samples or beating samples and in canopy fogging samples. Fresh treefalls usually contain scattered workers, and one species (a form of N. echinatinodis) can form large conspicuous colonies in the canopy of mature wet forest.
Nesomyrmex was reviewed and keyed by Kempf (1959). This treatment of the Costa Rican fauna relies mostly on this resource. Nesomyrmex was considered a junior synonym of Leptothorax for a period, but was reinstated by Bolton (2003).
Literature Cited
Bolton, B. 2003. Synopsis and classification of Formicidae. Mem. Amer. Entomol. Inst. 71:1-370.
Kempf, W. W. 1959. A synopsis of the New World species belonging to the Nesomyrmex-group of the ant genus Leptothorax Mayr (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Studia Entomologica (n.s.)2:391-432.
Page author: John T. Longino longinoj@evergreen.edu
Date of this version: 4 September 2004.