Dacetini, Formicidae, Hymenoptera, Insecta, Arthropoda, Animalia
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Range
Full Range: Mexico (type locality), Costa Rica.
Costa Rican Range: known from a collection from Wilson Botanical Garden near San Vito and a worker from Monteverde.
Identification
Mandible short and curving downward in profile; lateral head capsule with the antennal scrobe mostly or entirely smooth and shining; propodeal spines present (former Glamyromyrmex); leading edge of scape lacking erect setae; disc of postpetiole in dorsal view very broadly U-shaped or V-shaped, with an extremely deeply concave anterior face; spongiform tissue absent from ventral surface of petiole, postpetiole and first gastral sternite; face with 0-4 erect setae near vertex margin; head in side view convex above and below, not flattened; pronotal humeral hair present; gaster in lateral view tear drop shaped, strongly concave anteriorly near insertion of postpetiole; petiolar node in dorsal view about as wide as long. Also see Bolton (2000:175).
Similar species: turpis.
Natural History
Members of the genus are all predaceous, with a static pressure mode of attack (Bolton 1999).
This species is known from montane sites in southern Mexico and Costa Rica. Collections have been from forest floor leaf litter. The type specimens were from pine-oak-Liquidambar forest in southern Mexico, and specimens occurred in several litter samples taken by Bob Anderson on the slopes of Volcan Tacana, also in southern Mexico. Bolton (2000) also reports specimens collected by Wagner and Kethley in the southern mountains of Costa Rica, at Wilson Botanical Garden (Finca La Cruces). An additional worker was collected by Lisa Schonberg in her studies of the Monteverde cloud forest litter ant community.
Original Description
Pyramica rogata Bolton 2000:175, fig. 129, 176, 177. Holotype worker: Mexico, Chiapas, 3.9mi S. Pueblo Nuevo, Solistahuacan, 5400ft, 28.viii.1973, (A. Newton) [MCZ]. Paratype worker: same data as holotype [BMNH].
Literature Cited
Bolton, B. 1999. Ant genera of the tribe Dacetonini (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). J. Nat. Hist. 33:1639-1689.
Bolton, B. 2000. The ant tribe Dacetini, with a revision of the Strumigenys species of the Malagasy Region by Brian L. Fisher, and a revision of the Austral epopostrumiform genera by Steven O. Shattuck. Memoirs of the American Entomological Institute 65:1-1028.
Page author:
John T. Longino, The Evergreen State College, Olympia WA 98505 USA.longinoj@evergreen.edu
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