Formicidae, Hymenoptera, Insecta, Arthropoda, Animalia
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Identification
Minor worker: head length 0.50mm, head width 0.45mm, scape length 0.42mm, Webers length 0.60mm (n=1). Head rounded behind; mesonotal suture absent; promesonotum evenly arched; propodeal spines short; propodeal spiracle relatively large; face and mesosoma uniformly foveolate; first gastral tergum smooth and shining; dorsal setae of medium abundance, short, stiff; color orange.
Major worker: head length 0.86mm, head width 0.76mm, scape length 0.40mm (n=1). Anterior half of face rugose, rugae longitudinal, subparallel; posterior half of face smooth and shining; hypostomal margin flat; median tooth small; lateral teeth pointed, about one third distance from midline to recessed teeth flanking mandible bases; dorsal pilosity abundant; head with abundant short erect setae projecting from sides of head in face view; propodeal spiracle large.
Range
Colombia, Brazil (Cear‡), Costa Rica. Costa Rica: southern Atlantic lowlands.
Natural History
Inhabits dead sticks in lowland wet forest. In Costa Rica JTL collected two nest series in Hitoy Cerere Biol. Res., second growth vegetation (Cecropia, Heliconia, low shrubby trees) near primary forest, in 6mm dia. dead twigs.
Comments
Forel (1901) described arhuaca from the Arhuac village of San Antonio in the Santa Marta area of Colombia. He stated that the types were collected from dried cow dung, but the labels on syntypes at the MCZ say "D tige," better matching the field observations from Costa Rica.
Costa Rica material was compared directly with the MCZ syntypes and they were a very close match.
Page authors:
John T. Longino, The Evergreen State College, Olympia WA 98505 USA. longinoj@evergreen.edu
Stefan Cover, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138 USA. scover@oeb.harvard.edu
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