Strumigenys godmani Forel 1899

Dacetini, Myrmicinae, Formicidae, Hymenoptera, Insecta, Arthropoda, Animalia

John T. Longino, The Evergreen State College, Olympia WA 98505 USA.

longinoj@evergreen.edu

14 April 1997

worker lateral view

Specimen: Costa Rica, Prov. Limon: Reserva Biologica Hitoy Cerere, 100m (J. Longino 977). INBIOCRI001283769. Image by J. Longino.

Identification

Apical fork of mandible with a single intercalary tooth; mandible with 2 well-developed preapical teeth; large species with massive head and short, heavy mandibles.

Measurements: head length 1.06-1.20mm, mandible length 0.51-0.55, CI 87-93, MI 46-48 (n=8 specimens from 2 localities, Brown 1962).

worker face view

Specimen: Costa Rica, Prov. Limon: Reserva Biologica Hitoy Cerere, 100m (J. Longino 977). INBIOCRI001283769. Image by J. Longino.

Range

Guyana, Panama, Costa Rica (Atlantic slope to 500m).

Natural History

Brown and Wilson (1959) summarize the genus as follows:

"Widespread in tropics and warm temperate areas. Primarily forest-dwelling; some species occur in grassland and arid scrub. ... Nests mostly in soil and rotting wood; a few species live in arboreal plant cavities in tropical rain forest. Foraging hypogaeic to epigaeic-arboreal. Food: most species are collembolan feeders; a few are polyphagous predators or occasionally feed on sugary substances..."

Workers of godmani are dramatically large for a Strumigenys. Individual workers may be found day or night on rainforest floor, on rotten wood, and under loose bark. I have never observed this species in Winkler samples, including samples from the same locations where individual workers are collected by visual search. This could be due to their somehow being undersampled by litter sifting, or, more likely, they are actually at much lower density than most Strumigenys species, but their large size makes them oversampled by visual search. Brown (1962) found a nest in Panama in a small rotten log in cloud forest.

Selected Records

I have observed workers at La Selva, Braulio Carrillo National Park at 500m, and Hitoy Cerere.

Literature Cited

Brown, W. L., Jr. 1962. The neotropical species of the ant genus Strumigenys Fr. Smith: Synopsis and keys to the species. Psyche 69:238-267.

Brown, W. L., Jr., Wilson, E. O. 1959. The evolution of the dacetine ants. Quart. Rev. Biol. 34:278-294.

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