''Leptothorax pocahontas'' (

Powhatan Powhatan people () are Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands who belong to member tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy, or Tsenacommacah. They are Algonquian peoples whose historic territories were in eastern Virginia. Their Powh ...

: ''

pocahontas Pocahontas (, ; born Amonute, also known as Matoaka and Rebecca Rolfe; 1596 – March 1617) was a Native American woman belonging to the Powhatan people, notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. S ...

'' = playful one) is a

threatened species A threatened species is any species (including animals, plants and fungi) which is vulnerable to extinction in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the population dynamics measure of ''critical depensatio ...

of ant endemic to

Alberta, Canada Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

,Buschinger, A. 1979. ''Doronomyrmex pocahontas'', n. sp., a parasitic ant from Alberta, Canada (Hym. Formicidae). Ins. Soc. 26: 216-222

/ref> facing a high risk of extinction. The total length of a female ant, including the Mandible (insect mouthpart), mandibles is 4 mm. The chromosome number of the species is n = 18. The species is known only from its type locality,Buschinger, A. and J. Heinze. 1993. ''Doronomyrmex pocahontas'': not a workerless parasite but still an enigmatic taxon (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). ''Ins. Soc.'' 40: 423-432

Maligne Canyon, near

Jasper, Alberta Jasper is a specialized municipality and townsite in western Alberta within the Canadian Rockies. The townsite is in the Athabasca River valley and is the commercial centre of Jasper National Park. History Established in 1813, Jasper ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. It closely resembles the workerless European species, '' Leptothorax pacis'', and having believed to be also lacking a worker caste when it was first described in 1979, was placed in the same genus (at the time, genus ''Doronomyrmex''). The queen is highly polymorphic, differing in size, pilosity, sculpture (shininess) and colouration. The genus ''Doronomyrmex'' was synonymized with ''Leptothorax'' as a junior synonym by Heinze (1998), a taxonomic action later supported by Bolton's (2003)Bolton, B. 2003. Synopsis and classification of Formicidae. Memoirs of the American Entomological Institute 71: 1-370. "Classification and Synopsis of Formicidae". Thus all species previously included within the genus ''Doronomyrmex'' taxon should be technically considered to belong to ''Leptothorax'' until the next taxonomic revision.

Conservation status

The

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological ...

lists the species as fitting the "D2" criteria of the Vulnerable (VU) category in the "1994 Categories & Criteria", meaning the population has an acute restriction in its area of occupancy (typically less than 100 km²) or in the number of locations (typically less than five). As such, the population is prone to the effects of human activities, or chance events and may become

critically endangered An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...

or may even become

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

very suddenly. The last assessment of its extinction risk was published by the

World Conservation Union The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the statu ...

(IUCN) in 1996.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5298201

Insects described in 1979 Endemic fauna of Canada Endemic fauna of Alberta Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN