Formicidae, Hymenoptera, Insecta, Arthropoda, Animalia
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Range
Mexico, Costa Rica, Suriname, SE Brazil, Peru. Costa Rica: Atlantic lowlands.
Identification
Antennae 6-segmented (12-segmented in other species); very small and light-colored.
Notes
The type of degenerata, from southeastern Brazil, has 7 antennal segments. Four workers from Peru (Lattke 1991), specimens from Costa Rica, and a collection from Mexico have 6 antennal segments but otherwise match the type description of degenerata. Kempf (1972) lists localities for the species as Suriname and Brazil (states of Santa Catarina and Sao Paulo).
The only known Costa Rican specimens are from the La Selva Biological Station. They were collected as part of Project ALAS, from 10cm deep soil/litter cores placed in Berlese funnels. The specimens are all workers, and were found in two separate berlese samples from mature rainforest. The samples were within 10m of each other, taken 4 months apart.
The Peruvian workers were collected in clay soil at the base of large trees (S. P. Cover, pers. comm. in Lattke 1991). Juan A. Rodriguez-Garza recently wrote to me regarding his collection of degenerata in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico, "at the base of a tree," in a study of the leaf litter fauna. Sr. Rodriguez-Garcia also informed me that his specimens had six antennal segments.
These few collections from soil, coupled with the fact that the species has not appeared in extensive Winkler bag extraction of sifted leaf litter, suggest that the species may be widespread in tropical forests, but dwell exclusively in soil well below the surface. Thus, its rarity may be an artifact of its subterranean habits and minute size, which make sampling difficult.
Type data
Ambylopone degenerata Borgmeier 1957:111. Holotype worker: Brazil, Santa Catarina: Nova Teutonia.
Literature Cited
Borgmeier, T. 1957. Myrmecologische Studien, I. Anais Acad. Bras. Cienc. 29:103-128.
Kempf, W. W. 1972. Catalogo abreviado das formigas da Regiao Neotropical. Studia Entomol. 15:3-344.
Lattke, J. E. 1991. Studies of Neotropical Amblyopone Erichson (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Contributions in Science (Los Angeles) 428:1-7.
Page author:
John T. Longino, The Evergreen State College, Olympia WA 98505 USA.longinoj@evergreen.edu
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