Anochetus cato

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Anochetus cato
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Formicidae
Subfamily: Ponerinae
Tribe: Ponerini
Genus: Anochetus
Species: A. cato
Binomial name
Anochetus cato
Forel, 1901

Anochetus cato castype06977-01 profile 1.jpg

Anochetus cato castype06977-01 dorsal 1.jpg

Specimen labels

Synonyms

Identification

Keys including this Species

Distribution

Latitudinal Distribution Pattern

Latitudinal Range: -2.683330059° to -11°.

 
North
Temperate 		North
Subtropical 		Tropical South
Subtropical 		South
Temperate

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists

Indo-Australian Region: New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands.

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 cato 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

Images from AntWeb

Anochetus cato castype06977-02 head 1.jpgAnochetus cato castype06977-02 profile 1.jpgAnochetus cato castype06977-02 dorsal 1.jpgAnochetus cato castype06977-02 label 1.jpg
Syntype of Anochetus rossi. Queen (alate/dealate). Specimen code castype06977-02. 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.

  • cato. Anochetus cato Forel, 1901b: 6 (w.) NEW GUINEA (Papua New Guinea).
    • Type-material: holotype worker.
    • Type-locality: Papua New Guinea: Bismarck Archipelago, New Britain I., Lowon, nr Ralum (F. Dahl).
    • Type-depository: MHNG.
    • Status as species: Dahl, 1901: 12; Mann, 1919: 301; Emery, 1911d: 108; Wheeler, W.M. 1935g: 15; Chapman & Capco, 1951: 39; Wilson, 1959a: 504; Brown, 1978c: 556, 585; Bolton, 1995b: 64; Sarnat, et al. 2013: 73.
    • Senior synonym of rossi (Donisthorpe, 1947d): Wilson, 1959a: 504; Brown, 1978c: 556; Bolton, 1995b: 64.
    • Senior synonym of subfasciatus: Wilson, 1959a: 504; Brown, 1978c: 556; Bolton, 1995b: 64.
    • Distribution: Indonesia (Irian Jaya), Papua New Guinea (+ Bismarck Archipelago), Solomon Is.
  • rossi. Odontomachus rossi Donisthorpe, 1947d: 186 (w.q.) NEW GUINEA (Indonesia).
    • Type-material: 14 syntype workers, 2 syntype queens.
    • Type-locality: Indonesia: Irian Jaya (“Dutch New Guinea”), Maffin Bay, viii.1944 (E.S. Ross).
    • Type-depositories: BMNH, CASC, MCZC.
    • Combination in Odontomachus: Donisthorpe, 1950a: 338.
    • Status as species: Donisthorpe, 1950a: 338; Chapman & Capco, 1951: 45.
    • Junior synonym of cato: Wilson, 1959a: 504; Brown, 1978c: 556; Bolton, 1995b: 65.
  • subfasciatus. Anochetus cato var. subfasciatus Mann, 1919: 301 (w.q.m.) SOLOMON IS (Malapaina).
    • Type-material: syntype workers, syntype queens, syntype males (numbers not stated).
    • [Note: Baroni Urbani, 1973b: 143, cites 3w ‘paratypes’ NHMB from Tulagi, which are not type-material.]
    • Type-locality: Solomon Is: Three Sisters Is, Malapaina I., 19.v.-24.xi.1916 (W.M. Mann).
    • Type-depository: MCZC.
    • Subspecies of cato: Wheeler, W.M. 1935g: 15.
    • Junior synonym of cato: Wilson, 1959a: 504; Brown, 1978c: 556; Bolton, 1995b: 65.

Description

References

References based on Global Ant Biodiversity Informatics

  • Brown Jr., W.L. 1978. Contributions toward a reclassification of the Formicidae. Part VI. Ponerinae, Tribe Ponerini, Subtribe Odontomachiti, Section B. Genus Anochetus and Bibliography. Studia Entomologia 20(1-4): 549-XXX
  • Brown W.L. Jr. 1978. Contributions toward a reclassification of the Formicidae. Part VI. Ponerinae, tribe Ponerini, subtribe Odontomachiti. Section B. Genus Anochetus and bibliography. Studia Ent. 20(1-4): 549-638.
  • CSIRO Collection
  • Chapman, J. W., and Capco, S. R. 1951. Check list of the ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of Asia. Monogr. Inst. Sci. Technol. Manila 1: 1-327
  • Donisthorpe H. 1938. New species and varieties of ants from New Guinea. Annals and Magazine of Natural History (11)1: 593-599.
  • Donisthorpe H. 1947. Some new ants from New Guinea. Annals and Magazine of Natural History (11)14: 183-197.
  • Donisthorpe H. 1950. An eighth instalment of the Ross Collection of ants from New Guinea. Annals and Magazine of Natural History (12)3: 338-341.
  • Emery C. 1911. Hymenoptera. Fam. Formicidae. Subfam. Ponerinae. Genera Insectorum 118: 1-125.
  • Forel A. 1901. Formiciden aus dem Bismarck-Archipel, auf Grundlage des von Prof. Dr. F. Dahl gesammelten Materials. Mitt. Zool. Mus. Berl. 2: 4-37.
  • General D. M., and G. D. Alpert. 2012. A synoptic review of the ant genera (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) of the Philippines. Zookeys 200: 1-111.
  • Janda M., G. D. Alpert, M. L. Borowiec, E. P. Economo, P. Klimes, E. Sarnat, and S. O. Shattuck. 2011. Cheklist of ants described and recorded from New Guinea and associated islands. Available on http://www.newguineants.org/. Accessed on 24th Feb. 2011.
  • Jones T. H., R. C. Flournoy, J. A. Torres, R. R. Snelling, T. F. Spande, and H. M. Garraffo. 1999. 3-Methyl-4-phenylpyrrole from the Ants Anochetus kempfi and Anochetus mayri. J. Nat. Prod. 62: 1343-1345.
  • Klimes P., P. Fibich, C. Idigel, and M. Rimandai. 2015. Disentangling the diversity of arboreal ant communities in tropical forest trees. PLoS ONE 10(2): e0117853. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0117853
  • Mann W. M. 1919. The ants of the British Solomon Islands. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 63:273-391.
  • Mann William. 1916. The Ants of the British Solomon Islands. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College 63(7): 273-391
  • Mann, W.M. 1919. The ants of the British Solomon Islands. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard College 63: 273-391
  • Snelling R. R. 1998. Insect Part 1: The social Hymenoptera. In Mack A. L. (Ed.) A Biological Assessment of the Lakekamu Basin, Papua New Guinea, RAP 9. 189 ppages
  • Snelling R. R. 2000. Ants of the Wapoga river area, Irian Jaya, Indonesia. In Mack, Andrew L. and Leeanne E. Alonso (eds.). 2000. A Biological Assessment of the Wapoga River Area of Northwestern Irian Jaya, Indonesia. RAP Bulletin of Biological Assessment 14, Conservation International, Washington, DC.
  • Viehmeyer H. 1912. Ameisen aus Deutsch Neuguinea gesammelt von Dr. O. Schlaginhaufen. Nebst einem Verzeichnisse der papuanischen Arten. Abhandlungen und Berichte des Königlichen Zoologischen und Anthropologische-Ethnographischen Museums zu Dresden 14: 1-26.
  • Wheeler W.M. 1935. Check list of the ants of Oceania. Occasional Papers of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum 11(11):1-56.
  • Wheeler, William Morton.1935.Checklist of the Ants of Oceania.Occasional Papers 11(11): 3-56
  • Wilson E. O. 1959. Studies on the ant fauna of Melanesia V. The tribe Odontomachini. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 120: 483-510.
  • Wilson E.O. 1959. Adaptive shift and dispersal in a tropical ant fauna. Evolution 13(1): 122-144.
  • Wilson Edward O. 1959. Adaptive Shift and Dispersal in a Tropical Ant Fauna. Evolution 13(1): 122-144
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