Date of this version: 8 January 2005.
Previous versions of this page: 1 August 2003
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| Genus List | Species list |
This genus has a widespread distribution in the Old World, including southern Europe, northern Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and Australia (Santschi 1919, Emery 1925, Shattuck 1992). The single New World species is B. paradoxus, first collected in Costa Rica in 2003 (Dubovikoff and Longino 2004).
Little is known of the biology of Bothriomyrmex in general, but several species are known to be temporary social parasites, using colonies of Tapinoma to establish their own colonies. Wheeler (1910), translating the observations of Santschi (1906), wrote the following:
Among the mixed colonies recorded by Forel (1874) there was one composed of two species of Dolichoderine ants, Bothriomyrmex meridionalis and Tapinoma erraticum, which he found on the Borromean Islands in the Lago Maggiore. This colony ... had been regarded as an exceptional or abnormal occurrence till very recently, when Santschi (1906, Forel, 1906) discovered several mixed colonies of varieties of these species (B. atlantis and T. nigerrimum) in the Tunisian desert, and showed by a series of surprising observations that they were cases of temporary parasitism. The Bothriomyrmex queen, on descending from her nuptial flight, wanders about on the ground till she finds a Tapinoma nest and then permits herself to be seized and "arrested" by the Tapinoma workers. These then proceed to drag her into their burrow by her legs and antennae. After entering the nest the parasite may be attacked from time to time by the workers, but she takes refuge on the brood or on the back of the Tapinoma queen. In either of these positions she seems to be quite immune from attack. ... Santschi observed that the Bothriomyrmex queen often spends long hours on the back of the large Tapinoma queen and that while she is in this position she busies herself with sawing off the head of her host! By the time she has succeeded in accomplishing this cruel feat, she has acquired the nest odor and is adopted by the Tapinoma workers in the place of their unfortunate mother. The parasite thereupon proceeds to keep them busy bringing up her brood. They eventually die of old age and the nest then becomes the property of a thriving, pure colony of Bothriomyrmex atlantis. The queen of this species, as Santschi has shown, is mimetic ..., being but little larger than the Tapinoma workers and provided with an odor like that of the host species, though this odor is lacking in her own workers.
Lloyd et al. (1986) found that the pygidial glands of B. syrius queens and the Tapinoma simrothi host workers contained the same ketone, and they suggested that this aids the queen in gaining access to the Tapinoma colony.
All the known species have diminutive queens, so temporary social parasitism could be the mode of colony founding for the whole genus.
Literature Cited
Dubovikoff, D. A., and J. T. Longino. 2004. A new species of the genus Bothriomyrmex Emery, 1869 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Dolichoderinae) from Costa Rica. Zootaxa 776:1-10. Emery, C. 1925. Les esp¸ces europˇennes et orientales du genre Bothriomyrmex. Bulletin de la Sociˇtˇ Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles 56:5-22.
Forel, A. 1906. Moeurs des fourmis parasites des genres Wheeleria et Bothriomyrmex. Revue Suisse de Zoologie 14:51-69.
Lloyd, H. A., N. R. Schmuff, and A. Hefetz. 1986. Chemistry of the anal glands of Bothriomyrmex syrius Forel. Olfactory mimetism and temporary social parasitism. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology B Comparative Biochemistry 83:71-73.
Santschi, F. 1906. A propos de moeurs parasitiques temporaires des fourmis du genre Bothriomyrmex. Annales de la Sociˇtˇ Entomologique de France 75:363-392.
Santschi, F. 1919. Fourmis du genre Bothriomyrmex Emery. (Systˇmatique et moeurs.). Revue de Zoologie Africaine (Bruxelles) 7:201-224.
Shattuck, S. O. 1992. Generic revision of the ant subfamily Dolichoderinae (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Sociobiology 21:1-181.
Wheeler, W. M. 1910. Ants: their structure, development and behavior. Columbia University Press, New York.
Page author: John T. Longino longinoj@evergreen.edu
Date of this version: 8 January 2005.
Previous versions of this page: 1 August 2003
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