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Fernando Fernandez of the Humboldt Institute in Colombia is currently revising this genus. The resources provided here are provisional and are only meant to allow separation of Costa Rica material and to provide Fernando with my observations on the Costa Rican fauna. Expect the names presented here to change pending Fernando's revisionary work.
Two of the morphospecies (JTL-001 and JTL-004) are in the same complex as the ants that Fernandez identified as in the genus Paedalgus (Fernandez 2002). Paedalgus, Oligomyrmex, and Carebara are three closely related genera currently under revision, and all may end up under Carebara (Fernandez pers. comm.).
Note that two of the species, nevermanni and eidmanni, may appear in some works under the genus Erebomyrma. This genus has been synonymized under Oligomyrmex, but Wilson considers Erebomyrma a distinct genus and maintains it as such in the keys in The Ants (Hoelldobler and Wilson 1990).
Oligomyrmex, where known, has a soldier caste. I have seen soldiers in collections but have rarely collected them myself. Minor workers are relatively common in Winkler samples but I never get soldiers.
I know nothing of the biology of Oligomyrmex. Some species have been observed close to the nests of other ant species, and thus they are reputed to be "lestobiotic," but there are very few (none?) well-documented observations.
Literature Cited
Fernandez C., F. 2002. First record of the myrmicine ant genus Paedalgus Forel, 1911 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from the Western Hemisphere. Entomotropica 17:181-182.
Page author: John T. Longino longinoj@evergreen.edu
Date of this version: 18 September 2003.