Formicidae, Hymenoptera, Insecta, Arthropoda, Animalia
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Identification
Minor worker: head length 0.62mm, head width 0.50mm, scape length 0.84mm, Webers length 0.79mm (n=1). Head with vertex collar narrow; promesonotal suture weakly impressed; metanotal groove well impressed, broad; propodeal spines of moderate length; face largely smooth and shiny, with weak punctation between eye and antennal insertion; pronotum smooth and shiny; mesonotum and propodeum foveolate on sides and dorsum; gaster smooth and shiny; pilosity moderately long, flexuous; mesonotum with single pair of long flexuous setae that are bent forward at apex; mesosoma light orange brown, head contrastingly darker brown, usually gaster also darker brown.
Major worker: head length 1.14mm, head width 1.10mm, scape length 0.81mm (n=1). Much of face punctatorugose, smooth and shiny with piligerous punctures on vertex lobes, medial area shiny with longitudinal rugae; hypostomal margin with median tooth and pair of flanking teeth, flanking teeth closer to median tooth than to small recessed tooth flanking mandible; head, mesosoma, and gaster covered with abundant, long, erect setae, including abundant erect setae projecting from sides of head in face view.
Similar species: susannae, kukrana, cocciphaga.
Range
Costa Rica (Atlantic lowlands).
Natural History
The species occurs in mature wet forest to 600m. It nests in the low arboreal zone, within a few meters of the ground. It does not appear to forage on the ground during the day, since it has not been collected at baits and only once in a Winkler sample.
Selected Records
La Selva: canopy fogging and Malaise samples.
La Selva: nest in litter suspended in understory palm.
La Selva: small (incipient?) nest in and under dead leaf trapped under aroid stems on tree trunk, about 1.5m high.
Guanacaste Conservation Area (Pitilla): nest in vertical dead stick over swamp; also in Winkler sample.
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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