Formicidae, Hymenoptera, Insecta, Arthropoda, Animalia
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Images available: Worker: face view (original jpeg); mesosoma, lateral view (original jpeg) (original line drawing) (reduced line drawing). Queen: face view (original jpeg) (reduced jpeg) (original line drawing) (reduced line drawing); head, lateral view (original jpeg); mandible (original line drawing) (reduced line drawing); petiole (original jpeg) (original line drawing) (reduced line drawing).
Identification
Nests in live stems.
Queen: head subrectangular, head length greater than or equal to 1.3 times head width; head width greater than 1.27-1.36mm (n=9); color largely orange.
Worker: promesonotum with sparse pilosity; setae present on propodeum; head width of largest workers up to 1.42mm; head and pronotum red or orange, grading to brown posteriorly, appearing bicolored in the field.
Range
Guatemala to Panama. Costa Rica: common at Santa Rosa, Palo Verde, and along the road to Monteverde.
Natural History
beltii is one of the more common inhabitants of Triplaris melaenodendron, but has also been collected from Cordia nodosa, Cecropia peltata, Cochlospermum vitifolium (Janzen, pers. comm.), and Pithecellobium saman. Colonies can be large, filling the crown of large Pithecellobium trees. The nest space is entirely within live stems at branch tips, and workers are rarely seen foraging outside of the stems. This species is much more common than museum collections might suggest, because of its cryptic habits.
I observed a founding queen in a cut branch of a Triplaris tree. The terminal 20-40cm, the leafy part, was unoccupied. Lower in the branch, founding queens of longiceps and beltii occupied adjacent cavities. The cavities of the two queens formerly were continuous through a perforated septum, but a plug of particulate matter separated the two. The plug was asymmetrical, as though built from the beltii side. This observation, together with the catholic nesting habits and somewhat bristly mandibles of beltii, led me to speculate that beltii might be a secondary occupant of ant-plants (Longino 1996). beltii may rely on primary occupants to excavate entrances, entering subsequently and either fighting or walling off the primary occupant.
I have examined scattered material from southern South America that is either beltii, a close relative, or a highly convergent species.
Literature Cited
Longino, J. T. 1996. Taxonomic characterization of some live-stem inhabiting Azteca (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in Costa Rica, with special reference to the ants of Cordia (Boraginaceae) and Triplaris (Polygonaceae). Journal of Hymenoptera Research 5:131-156.
Page author:
John T. Longino, The Evergreen State College, Olympia WA 98505 USA. longinoj@evergreen.edu
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