Formicidae, Hymenoptera, Insecta, Arthropoda, Animalia
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Identification
Minor worker: head length 0.75mm, head width 0.61mm, scape length 0.94mm, Webers length 0.98mm (n=1). Head slightly elongate behind, without vertex collar; promesonotal and metanotal grooves well impressed; anepisternum impressed relative to katepisternum; propodeal spines very long; face smooth and shiny; pronotum smooth and shiny; katepisternum and sides of propodeum foveolate; anepisternum, dorsum of propodeum, and dorsum of propodeum smooth or very faintly sculptured; gaster smooth and shiny; dorsal pilosity variable, either very abundant and almost wooly or moderately abundant, very long, flexuous; color red brown.
Major worker: head length 1.17mm, head width 1.14mm, scape length 0.94mm (n=1). Face largely smooth and shiny; space between eye, frontal carina, and mandibular insertion longitudinally rugose, remainder of face smooth; hypostomal margin with pair of widely-spaced teeth, each tooth sharp and needle-like, located near small recessed tooth flanking mandible; dorsal pilosity variable, either very abundant and almost wooly or moderately abundant, very long, flexuous; few to no setae projecting from sides of head in face view.
Range
Costa Rica: mid-elevation Atlantic slope and Osa Peninsula from sea level to 700m.
Selected Records
Corcovado National Park (Rio Nino, 700m): cloud forest; recruiting to bait on ground.
Braulio Carrillo National Park (500m): small forest remnant surrounded by pasture; a nest of particulate matter surrounded a clump of aroid roots about 1m high.
Penas Blancas Valley: primary forest; a nest was in loose debris (dead leaves, a little bit of carton) lodged on the branch of a small Ocotea (a myrmecophyte species, containing a Myrmelachista colony inside the stems); only minors, majors, and some larvae were observed under the debris; it may have been a nest fragment.
Comments
The types were collected by Phil Ward at Llorona in Corcovado National Park, on a palm trunk in rainforest, 100m elevation. Llorona is a coastal site with rainforest-covered bluffs. The pilosity on the types differs strongly from Atlantic slope material, and material from the Osa cloud forest needs to be examined again. The types have abundant, short, almost wooly pilosity. The Atlantic slope material has only moderately abundant pilosity, and the hairs are very long.
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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