''Blepharidatta'' is a rare

Neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In biogeogra ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

ant Ants are Eusociality, eusocial insects of the Family (biology), family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the Taxonomy (biology), order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from Vespoidea, vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cre ...

s in the

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zo ...

Myrmicinae Myrmicinae is a subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily ...

. The genus, formed by predatory species whose small

colonies A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their '' metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often or ...

nest in soil or

leaf-litter Plant litter (also leaf litter, tree litter, soil litter, litterfall, or duff) is dead plant material (such as leaves, bark, needles, twigs, and cladodes) that has fallen to the ground. This detritus or dead organic material and its constituent ...

, has up to seven species, but most of them are waiting for a formal

taxonomic 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme of classes (a taxonomy) and the allocation ...

treatment or confirmation.

Species

*''

Blepharidatta brasiliensis ''Blepharidatta'' is a rare Neotropical genus of ants in the subfamily Myrmicinae. The genus, formed by predatory species whose small colonies nest in soil or leaf-litter, has up to seven species, but most of them are waiting for a formal taxonom ...

'' Wheeler, 1915 *'' Blepharidatta conops'' Kempf, 1967 In 2015 two new species were described: * '' Blepharidatta delabiei'' sp. n. Brandão ''et al.'', 2015 * '' Blepharidatta fernandezi'' sp. n. Brandão ''et al.'', 2015

Distribution and habitat

''Blepharidatta'' is a strictly Neotropical group that was described by Wheeler (1915) from workers of ''Blepharidatta brasiliensis'' collected near

Belém Belém (; Portuguese for Bethlehem; initially called Nossa Senhora de Belém do Grão-Pará, in English Our Lady of Bethlehem of Great Pará), often called Belém of Pará, is the capital and largest city of the state of Pará in the north of B ...

(State of

Pará Pará () is a Federative units of Brazil, state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins (state), Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas (Brazilian st ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

), in the

Amazon forest The Amazon rainforest, also called the Amazon jungle or Amazonia, is a Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin ...

. Up to seven species are currently recognized, but most of them are waiting for a formal taxonomic treatment or confirmation. Based on morphological as well as behavioral data, only three species are formally recognized: ''B. brasiliensis'' found in the Amazonian forest, ''Blepharidatta conops'', an inhabitant of savanna-like formation from central Brazil (

Cerrado The Cerrado () is a vast ecoregion of Tropics, tropical savanna in central Brazil, being present in the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Tocantins, Maranhão, Piauí, Bahia, Minas Gerais, São Paulo (state), São Paulo, Paraná ...

), and an undescribed species (''Blepharidatta'' "sp-ba")Informal name used by Pereira et al. (2014) known from the Atlantic rainforest of the State of

Bahia Bahia () is one of the 26 Federative units of Brazil, states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo (state), São Paulo, Mina ...

, eastern Brazil. All are ground-dwelling predatory species that nest in the ground or in the leaf-litter, with small monogynous or polygynous colonies.

Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

are

ergatoid An ergatoid (from Greek '' ergat-'', "worker" + '' -oid'', "like") is a permanently wingless reproductive adult ant or termite. The similar but somewhat ambiguous term ergatogyne refers to any intermediate form between workers and standard gyne ...

(i.e. permanently wingless and worker-like) and, at least in ''B. conops'', it is believed that the foundation of new colonies is by fission of established colonies.

Nests

Blepharidatta conops casent0178582 head 1

The best studied species is ''B. conops''. ''B. conops'' colonies (up to 250 workers) live in simple nests with a single opening and a vertical tunnel with 2 cm of diameter and 20 cm deep that ends in a cone-shaped widening at the bottom. Furthermore, all mature nests have a horizontal subsidiary chamber connected to the vertical tunnel through a narrow tunnel that opens at the mid-length of the vertical tunnel. It serves as a refuge for queen and brood when nests are visited or inhabited by

myrmecophile file:Panaphis juglandis.jpg , thumb , Myrmecophilous aphids being tended by ants Myrmecophily ( , ) consists of positive, Mutualism (biology), mutualistic, interspecies Association (ecology), associations between ants and a variety of other or ...

s or predators. Queens of ''B. conops'' have a characteristic phragmotic head that together with the anterior slope of

pronotum The prothorax is the foremost of the three segments in the thorax of an insect, and bears the first pair of legs. Its principal sclerites (exoskeletal plates) are the pronotum (dorsal), the prosternum (ventral), and the propleuron (lateral) on e ...

forms a frontal disk whose shape and dimensions fit the subsidiary chamber entrance and is used by the queen to block that entrance. The foragers patrol a roughly circular area around the nest opening, where they collect live and dead arthropods (mainly other ants) to feed their larvae. In the bottom area of the nest, prey is dismembered, chewed and fed to larvae via

trophallaxis Trophallaxis () is the transfer of food or other fluids among members of a community through mouth-to-mouth (stomodeum, stomodeal) or anus-to-mouth (proctodeum, proctodeal) feeding. Along with nutrients, trophallaxis can involve the transfer of m ...

. The discarded remains are arranged in a ring around the nest opening and workers concealed in the nest entrance ambush arthropods, including other ants, attracted by the carcasses ring. The other known species of ''Blepharidatta'' have different nesting habits: their smaller colonies (mean number of workers varying from 112 to 132) are found within the leaf-litter, in natural cavities between leaves or in rotting branches. Contrary to ''B. conops'', the queens of ''B. brasiliensis'' and ''Blepharidatta'' "sp-ba" do not have a phragmotic head. Colonies of ''B. conops'' occur in locally dense but widely scattered populations, with large areas of Cerrado devoided of ''B. conops''. According to Brandão et al. (2001), this distribution pattern may be explained by the limited dispersal mode of ergatoid queens and by the type of nest foundation (fission of established colonies). Such nest distribution may be characteristic of all ''Blepharidatta'' species and probably explains why ant species of this genus are considered rare.

Morphology

''Blepharidatta'' sp. queens are ergatoid and have an enlarged phragmotic head that, together with the anterior slope of the pronotum, form a nearly circular disk whose mean maximum transverse diameter is 1.68 mm. Frontal disk cuticle is discretely reticulate-punctate, nearly smooth; head margin is strongly curved upwards, and stiff hairs protrude laterally from the perimeter of the disk. Total mean body length of queens is 4.96 mm. ''Blepharidatta'' sp. workers are monomorphic (mean body length: 3.79 mm), and their mean maximum head width is 0.96 mm.

Notes

References

* * *Wheeler, W.M. (1915). "Two new genera of myrmicine ants from Brazil". ''Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology'', 59: 483-491 *

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q14453020 Myrmicinae Ant genera Hymenoptera of South America