''Gigantiops'' is a South American

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 ...

of jumping

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 ...

Formicinae The Formicinae are a subfamily within the Formicidae containing ants of moderate evolutionary development. Formicines retain some primitive features, such as the presence of cocoons around pupae, the presence of ocelli in workers, and littl ...

. The genus contains the single species ''Gigantiops destructor'', which is also the sole member of the

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...

Gigantiopini. They have the largest eyes among all ants, are known for their ability to jump, and have the highest number of chromosomes of any member of the subfamily Formicinae (2n=78).

Distribution and habitat

The genus is known from the

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

region in South America, where they nest in soil, rotten wood or cavities excavated by other animals (beetle galleries or nests of the bullet ant, '' Paraponera clavata''). They are distributed from about 10 degrees north to 15 degrees south of the equator.

Feeding habits

During the day, workers forage solitarily on the ground and in tree branches. They feed on extrafloral nectar and small

arthropod Arthropods ( ) are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. They possess an arthropod exoskeleton, exoskeleton with a cuticle made of chitin, often Mineralization (biology), mineralised with calcium carbonate, a body with differentiated (Metam ...

s, sometimes even eating the prey on site. Larvae are fed with chewed prey. Individual workers do not cooperate while foraging; they do not recruit nestmates, and may even fight nestmates for prey. Gigantiops destructor

References

External links

* Formicinae Monotypic ant genera Hymenoptera of South America {{formicinae-stub