Dacetini, Myrmicinae, Formicidae, Hymenoptera, Insecta, Arthropoda, Animalia
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Additional images: worker dorsal view.
Range
Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica. In Costa Rica: Atlantic and northern Pacific lowlands.
Identification
Apical fork of mandible with a single intercalary tooth; mandible with two conspicuous preapical teeth; head very narrow; propodeal lamellae with dorsal and ventral teeth or angles; body covered with short spatulate hairs. Also see Bolton (2000:531).
Head length 0.745mm, mandible length 0.451, head width 0.482, CI 65, MI 61 (n = 1 specimen from Costa Rica).
Natural History
Brown and Wilson (1959) summarize the genus as follows: "Widespread in tropics and warm temperate areas. Primarily forest-dwelling; some species occur in grassland and arid scrub. ... Nests mostly in soil and rotting wood; a few species live in arboreal plant cavities in tropical rain forest. Foraging hypogaeic to epigaeic-arboreal. Food: most species are collembolan feeders; a few are polyphagous predators or occasionally feed on sugary substances..."
Members of the genus are all predaceous, with a kinetic mode of attack (Bolton 1999).
borgmeieri is known from few collections. The holotype is from Tapera, Pernambuco, Brazil. I collected a worker in a Winkler sample, sifted litter from the forest floor, in a patch of riparian forest surrounded by pastures, Finca La Pacifica, Guanacaste Province, Costa Rica. The species has also been collected twice at La Selva Biological Station, from forest floor leaf litter.
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.
Brown, W. L., Jr. 1954. The neotropical species of the ant genus Strumigenys Fr. Smith: Group of saliens Mayr. Journal of the New York Entomological Society 62:55-62.
Brown, W. L., Jr., Wilson, E. O. 1959. The evolution of the dacetine ants. Quarterly Review of Biology 34:278-294.
Page author:
John T. Longino, The Evergreen State College, Olympia WA 98505 USA.longinoj@evergreen.edu
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