Formicinae, Formicidae, Hymenoptera, Insecta, Arthropoda, Animalia
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Additional images: queen, face view (small, large)
Range
Costa Rica: Monteverde, Pe–as Blancas, Heredia coffee farm, Barva transect at 1000m, Wilson Botanical Garden.
Identification
Face smooth, with abundant appressed pubescence; scapes surpass vertex margin by length of first funicular segment; pronotum with erect setae, no erect setae on mesosoma or propodeum; first gastral tergite with abundant appressed pubescence, no erect setae; metanotal groove weakly impressed; color dirty yellow.
Natural History
This is a montane species, preferring open second growth habitats in mid-elevation sites. They are arboreal, nesting in small diameter dead vine stems, in soft dead sticks, and under epiphytes. In the Monteverde area, including the upper Pe–as Blancas Valley (Refugio Aleman) I have collected nests in clearings at forest edges. Workers are relatively common in canopy fogging samples from Monteverde cloud forest, but do not occur in Winkler samples of sifted epiphytic material, suggesting more frequent occurrence in dead stems above epiphyte mats and on leaf surfaces.
In addition to abundant Monteverde samples, I have records from an Heredia coffee farm (from Perfecto's studies of coffee farm fauna), a collection from 1000m elevation on the Barva transect in Braulio Carrillo National Park (a nest I collected in a dead vine stem in a forest gap), and a collection from Wilson Botanical Garden (from Kaspari's studies of ant communities).
Page author:
John T. Longino, The Evergreen State College, Olympia WA 98505 USA.longinoj@evergreen.edu
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