Formicidae, Hymenoptera, Insecta, Arthropoda, Animalia
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Identification
Minor worker: head length 0.49mm, head width 0.46mm, scape length 0.42mm, Webers length 0.57mm (n=1). Head flattened behind, shallowly excavate; mesonotal suture absent; propodeal spines moderately long, spiniform; face uniformly foveolate, abrupt transition to smooth and shiny undersurface of head; pronotum smooth and shining; propodeal dorsum smooth and shining; katepisternum foveolate around margins, smooth and shining medially; side of propodeum foveolate dorsally, smooth and shining ventrally; first gastral tergum smooth and shining; dorsal pilosity sparse, moderately long, flexuous; color brown.
Major worker: head length 1.06mm, head width 0.87mm, scape length 0.45mm (n=1). Face largely punctatorugose; vertex lobes smooth and shining, shiny area extending short distance onto face; antennal scrobes weakly present as shallow depressions beneath apices of scapes; hypostomal margin gently curved, with conspicuous median tooth, and a pair of similar sized to smaller teeth about one half distance from midline to recessed teeth flanking mandible bases; dorsal pilosity abundant; head with abundant, short, suberect setae projecting from sides of head in face view.
Range
Costa Rica: Monteverde cloud forest, Braulio Carrillo 1200-1600m elevation, Tapanti, Cerro Pittier at 1600m.
Natural History
This species is a dominant ant in cloud forest leaf litter. It is mainly known from Winkler samples. In Monteverde, it occurs in nearly every Winkler sample in the ridge crest cloud forest, but drops out abruptly just below the divide on either slope (one collection is known from 1300m, just below the escarpent at the head of the Penas Blancas valley, but none from 900m and below, where many Winkler samples have been examined). Workers have been collected at baits in the Monteverde cloud forest. Several nests have been observed in rotten wood in the leaf litter. One collection (which is slightly different morphologically), from Tapanti, was from a nest in the clasping petiole of a Piper (not one of the myrmecophytic species). There was a seed cache in this nest.
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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