Formicinae, Formicidae, Hymenoptera, Insecta, Arthropoda, Animalia
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Additional images: worker scape (small, large).
Range
Southern Mexico to Costa Rica, Jamaica, Haiti, Trinidad, Brazil (Cear‡). Costa Rica: lowlands of both Atlantic and Pacific slopes.
Identification
Scape with macrochaetae conspicuous, long, strongly differentiated from appressed pubescence; color concolorous orange; appressed pubescence present on mesosoma and first gastral tergite.
Natural History
This species is a common generalized Paratrechina on the Pacific slope. It is one of the common species in the lowland wet forests of the Osa Peninsula and surrounding areas, and also in drier Guanacaste habitats such as Finca La Pacifica and the bosque humedo of Santa Rosa National Park. In these areas it is common at baits and extrafloral nectaries in the low arboreal zone, and it is common in Winkler samples of sifted litter from the forest floor. In the northern Pacific areas, it extends up the slope to the edge of cloud forest. I have collected it as a rare species in the Monteverde community area, and also just below the Cacao station in the Guanacaste Conservation Area.
It is less abundant on the Atlantic slope, where it tends to be restricted to drier, more exposed microhabitats. At La Selva Biological Station it is moderately common in canopy fogging samples, but is rare in Winkler samples from the forest floor. Also, it does not extend up the mountain slope on the Atlantic side. I have not collected it at an elevation higher than La Selva.
Nests are in ephemeral cavities. I have found nests under bark flaps of rotting wood and under epiphyte mats. Foragers are active day and night.
Page author:
John T. Longino, The Evergreen State College, Olympia WA 98505 USA.longinoj@evergreen.edu
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