Dacetini, Formicidae, Hymenoptera, Insecta, Arthropoda, Animalia
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Range
Full Range: Southern Mexico to Costa Rica.
Costa Rican Range: known from two Atlantic slope sites, Penas Blancas Valley (800m elevation) and La Selva Biological Station (50m elevation).
Identification
Mandible short and curving downward in profile; lateral head capsule with the antennal scrobe mostly or entirely smooth and shining; propodeal spines present (former Glamyromyrmex); leading edge of scape with long erect setae directed anteriorly or apically, not toward base of scape; disc of postpetiole in dorsal view very broadly U-shaped or V-shaped, with an extremely deeply concave anterior face; spongiform tissue absent from ventral surface of petiole, postpetiole and first gastral sternite; face coarsely rugose over disk, except for narrow median smooth area; face with flexuous setae; setae on face and mesosoma long, abundant, and erect. Also see Bolton (2000:173).
Similar species: dontopagis.
Natural History
Members of the genus are all predaceous, with a static pressure mode of attack (Bolton 1999).
This species inhabits wet forest leaf litter. The type specimen (from Tuli Creek, near San Miguel, Nicaragua) was in the stomach of a toad, Dendrobates tinctorius, found on the forest floor (Weber 1934, Brown 1953). In Costa Rica, I obtained a series of workers in a Winkler sample of forest floor litter from the Penas Blancas Valley, at 800m elevation. Project ALAS, at La Selva Biological Station, produced a single worker from a Berlese extraction of a soil/litter core. This is a very low frequency, given the intensity of sampling effort in Costa Rica. Thus this species is either very low density, very patchy in occurrence, or with specialized nesting and foraging habits that make it difficult to collect.
Type Data
Codiomyrmex excisus Weber 1934:51. Holotype worker: Nicaragua, Tuli Creek, near San Miguel, xi.1916, from stomach of tree toad Dendrobates tinctorum, no. 2821-3433 (G. H. Noble) [MCZ].
Later moved to Borgmeierita, then Glamyromyrmex, then Pyramica. See Bolton (2000) for complete synonymy.
Literature Cited
Bolton, B. 1999. Ant genera of the tribe Dacetonini (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). J. Nat. Hist. 33:1639-1689.
Bolton, B. 2000. The ant tribe Dacetini, with a revision of the Strumigenys species of the Malagasy Region by Brian L. Fisher, and a revision of the Austral epopostrumiform genera by Steven O. Shattuck. Memoirs of the American Entomological Institute 65:1-1028.
Brown, W. L., Jr. 1953. Revisionary studies of the ant tribe Dacetini. Am. Mid. Nat. 50:1-137.
Weber, N. A. 1934. Notes on Neotropical ants, including the descriptions of new forms. Rev. de Ent. 4:22-59.
Page author:
John T. Longino, The Evergreen State College, Olympia WA 98505 USA.longinoj@evergreen.edu
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