Anochetus boltoni

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Anochetus boltoni
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Formicidae
Subfamily: Ponerinae
Tribe: Ponerini
Genus: Anochetus
Species: A. boltoni
Binomial name
Anochetus boltoni
Fisher, 2008

Anochetus boltoni casent0104542 profile 1.jpg

Anochetus boltoni casent0104542 dorsal 1.jpg

Specimen labels

Collected three times in rotten logs and once in a leaf litter sample. Males have been collected in malaise samples on 20–25 Dec 2004 at 488 m in Parc National de Marojejy, Madagascar.

Identification

The species is most similar to Anochetus goodmani, but can be easily distinguished by its petiole node with a pair of large apical spines (Fisher and Smith).

Keys including this Species

Distribution

The distribution is limited to collections made between 450 m and 750 m in rainforest in Parc National de Marojejy and 240 m from Ambanitaza near Antalaha, Madagascar.

Latitudinal Distribution Pattern

Latitudinal Range: -14.43666667° to -14.43666667°.

 
North
Temperate
North
Subtropical
Tropical South
Subtropical
South
Temperate

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists

Malagasy Region: Madagascar (type locality).

Distribution based on AntMaps

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Distribution based on AntWeb specimens

Check data from AntWeb

Countries Occupied

Number of countries occupied by this species based on AntWiki Regional Taxon Lists. In general, fewer countries occupied indicates a narrower range, while more countries indicates a more widespread species.
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Estimated Abundance

Relative abundance based on number of AntMaps records per species (this species within the purple bar). Fewer records (to the left) indicates a less abundant/encountered species while more records (to the right) indicates more abundant/encountered species.
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Biology

Explore-icon.png Explore Overview of Anochetus biology 
Not much is known about the the biology of Anochetus boltoni but we can presume that its biology is similar to other Anochetus species. The following account of Anochetus biology is modified from Brown (1968):

Habitat. The places where Anochetus live are varied. Where they penetrate into the temperate zone, most species excavate nests in the earth. Occasionally the nest is dug under a covering rock. In the tropics, many nests are also dug in the soil, but in moist forested areas, a common site is the soil beneath a rotting log or other large mass of rotting wood, with extensions of the nest into the log itself. Another frequent nesting site in tropical forest is in the humus and leaf litter at the base of large trees, particularly between buttress roots. Anochetus species of medium or small size often nest in small pieces of rotting wood or bark, or even small rotting twigs or seeds and nuts lying in or on the forest litter. Some species tend to choose more arboreal nest sites.

Diet. Foraging for living animal prey takes place on the soil surface, within the soil-humus-log mold matrix, or on the trunks, branches and foliage of trees and plants wherever these are available. Fragmentary evidence indicates that most epigaeically foraging tropical Anochetus tend to do their foraging at dusk, at night, or during dawn hours. I found Anochetus africanus walking on tree trunks only at night in the Ivory Coast. Some species, particularly those with red heads or other aposematic coloration, apparently forage in the open more during the day. No systematic comparative study has yet been made of foraging hours for different species.

The food of Anochetus consists principally of living arthropods caught and killed or incapacitated by the ants. The smaller and more delicate species Anochetus inermis has been observed by me in a laboratory nest. The colony came from a piece of rotten wood from the floor of a wet ravine near Bucay in western Ecuador. The colony was fed with small tenebrionid beetle larvae (Tribolium castaneum), comparable in size to the A. inermis workers, and the latter attacked the prey with their mandibles in the familiar snapping manner, but very cautiously and nervously, with stealthy approach, extremely rapid strike, and instant recoil-retreat. After several attacks of this kind, with intervening periods of waiting, during which the beetle larvae fled, rested, or writhed about in distress, an ant would finally attack with its mandibles and hold them closed on the prey for long enough to deliver a quick sting in the intersegmental membrane. After this, the prey appeared to be paralyzed, or at least subdued, and sooner or later was carried off by the ant to the nest, and eventually placed on an ant larva.

Frequent delays and excursions before the prey are finally immobilized and brought to the ant larvae in the nest may well have the function of allowing time for protective allomones of the prey to dissipate. Many tenebrionid adults, including Tribofium, possess potent quinonoid defensive allomones, but the larva is not known to possess quinones in this genus.

Nuptial flight. Although males of different species of Anochetus are commonly taken at light, other species are not. Stewart and Jarmila Peck gave me Malaise trap samples taken in western Ecuador that contained males of several species, but Malaise traps capture both day- and night-flying insects.

Defense. When a nest of any of the larger Anochetus species is breached, some of the workers immediately hide beneath leaves or other objects, while other workers rush about with open jaws, which they snap at foreign objects, or even at leaves and twigs, with an audible tick. On human skin or clothing, a worker will snap her jaws and hold fast to the surface with them, at the same time quickly bringing her gaster around to sting. The sting is long and strong, and to me the effect is shocking and quickly painful.

Most of the smaller and medium-sized Anochetus species feign death when disturbed, crouching flat against the surface, or rolling themselves into a ball and remaining still, often for a minute or more. Only when held do they sting. Their stings can be felt in most cases, but the effect is usually trifling. ‎

Castes

Queens have not been collected.

Worker

Images from AntWeb

Anochetus boltoni casent0104542 head 1.jpgAnochetus boltoni casent0104542 profile 1.jpgAnochetus boltoni casent0104542 profile 2.jpgAnochetus boltoni casent0104542 profile 3.jpgAnochetus boltoni casent0104542 dorsal 1.jpgAnochetus boltoni casent0104542 label 1.jpg
Holotype of Anochetus boltoniWorker. Specimen code casent0104542. Photographer April Nobile, uploaded by California Academy of Sciences. Owned by CAS, San Francisco, CA, USA.

Male

Images from AntWeb

Anochetus boltoni casent0063847 head 1.jpgAnochetus boltoni casent0063847 profile 1.jpgAnochetus boltoni casent0063847 profile 2.jpgAnochetus boltoni casent0063847 profile 3.jpgAnochetus boltoni casent0063847 profile 4.jpgAnochetus boltoni casent0063847 dorsal 1.jpgAnochetus boltoni casent0063847 label 1.jpg
Male (alate). Specimen code casent0063847. Photographer April Nobile, uploaded by California Academy of Sciences. Owned by CAS, San Francisco, CA, USA.

Nomenclature

The following information is derived from Barry Bolton's Online Catalogue of the Ants of the World.

  • boltoni. Anochetus boltoni Fisher, in Fisher & Smith, 2008: 4, figs. 2a-d, 5a, 8a (w.m.) MADAGASCAR.
    • Type-material: holotype worker, 8 paratype workers.
    • Type-locality: holotype Madagascar: Antsiranana, Parc Nat. de Marojejy, Manantenina River, 28.0 km. 38° NE Andapa, 8.2 km. 333° NNW Manantenina, 14°26’12’’S, 49°46’30’’E, 450 m., 12-15.xi.2003, BLF08985, sifted litter, rainforest (B.L. Fisher, et al.); paratypes with same data.
    • Type-depositories: CASC (holotype); BMNH, CASC, MCZC (paratypes).
    • Distribution: Madagascar.

Unless otherwise noted the text for the remainder of this section is reported from the publication that includes the original description.

Description

Worker

Measurements: maximum and minimum based on all specimens, n = 20, (holotype): HL 1.80–2.08 (1.95), HW 1.61–1.89 (1.71), CI 87–98 (88), EL 0.33–0.41 (0.36), ML 1.15–1.25 (1.20), MI 59–66 (61), SL 1.83–1.96 (1.84) SI 101–115 (107), WL 2.63–2.89 (2.73), FL 1.97–2.13 (2.03), PW 0.95–1.06 (1.00).

Blade of mandible with five teeth and denticles located along distal two thirds of blade's length. Propodeum with short teeth. Dorsolateral margin of petiole with long spine. In frontal view, petiolar margin deeply U-shaped.

Male

Measurements: maximum and minimum based on n = 2 from Madagascar: HL 0.89–0.91, HW 1.05–1.13, CI 118–125, EL 0.56–0.62, SL 0.24, SI 21–23, WL 2.20–2.24, FL 1.75–1.80.

Dorsolateral margin of petiole with acute spine.

Type Material

Holotype worker, MADAGASCAR: Antsiranana, Parc National de Marojejy, Manantenina River, 28.0 km 38° NE Andapa, 8.2 km 333° NNW Manantenina, 14°26′12″S, 049°46′30″E, 450 m, sifted litter, rainforest, 12–15 Nov 2003 (coll. B. L. Fisher et al.): CASENT0104542 (California Academy of Sciences). Paratype. 8 workers with same data as holotype but pins coded, CASENT0487895, CASENT0487896, CASENT0487897, CASENT0006943. (The Natural History Museum, Museum of Comparative Zoology, CASC); CO1 Barcode from paratype collection and coded CASENT0487895-D01.

References

  • Fisher, B. L. and M. A. Smith. 2008. A Revision of Malagasy Species of Anochetus Mayr and Odontomachus Latreille (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). PloS one. 3:e1787.

References based on Global Ant Biodiversity Informatics

  • Fisher B. L., and M. A. Smith. 2008. A revision of Malagasy species of Anochetus Mayr and Odontomachus Latreille (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). PLoS ONE 3(5): e1787. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001787