Anochetus longispinus

Anochetus longispinus
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Hymenoptera
Family:	Formicidae
Subfamily:	Ponerinae
Tribe:	Ponerini
Genus:	Anochetus
Species:	A. longispinus
Binomial name
Anochetus longispinus Wheeler, W.M., 1936 Holotype Specimen Label

Known from the northeastern foothills of the Massif de La Hotte on the southwestern peninsula of Haiti.

Identification

Summarized from Brown (1978): Distinguished from other emarginatus group species by its shorter mandibles (MI < 67) with fewer teeth and denticles along the inner preapical margins. More or less yellow in color. Distinguished from the similar Anochetus haytianus by its slender petiole teeth that are more than 0.25 mm long.

Keys including this Species

• Key to Anochetus of Hispaniola
• Key to the Anochetus species of the Neotropics

Distribution

Latitudinal Distribution Pattern

Latitudinal Range: 18.38° to 18.38°.

North Temperate	North Subtropical	Tropical	South Subtropical	South Temperate

• Source: AntMaps

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists

Neotropical Region: Greater Antilles, Haiti (type locality).

Distribution based on AntMaps

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.

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.

Biology

Explore Overview of Anochetus biology  Not much is known about the the biology of Anochetus longispinus 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. ‎

Nomenclature

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

• longispinus. Anochetus (Stenomyrmex) haytianus subsp. longispina Wheeler, W.M. 1936b: 196 (w.) HAITI.
  • Type-material: 5 syntype workers, 1 syntype ergatoid queen.
  • Type-locality: Haiti: Massif se la Hotte, 3000-4000 ft, 1934 (P.J. Darlington).
  • Type-depository: MCZC.
  • Subspecies of haytianus: Kempf, 1964f: 238; Kempf, 1972a: 22.
  • Status as species: Brown, 1978c: 557, 611; Brandão, 1991: 325; Bolton, 1995b: 64; Lubertazzi, 2019: 73.
  • Distribution: Haiti.

Description

Worker

Differing from the typical haytianus in having the head slightly narrower behind, with distinctly longer and more slender antennal scapes and funiculi, and in the greater length of the petiolar spines, which are fully twice as long as those of haytianus. The coloration is also different, the head and thorax being darker and distinctly red as are also the tibiae. The transverse striation of the thorax, especially in the epinotal region, is distinctly coarser, the middle of the pronotum smoother and more shining.

Type Locality

Six specimens taken by Dr. Darlington in the northeastern foot-hills of the Massif de la Hotte, Haiti, 3000-4000 ft. (Lubertazzi 2016: Wheeler's reported elevation is different from the label on the cotypes in the MCZ, as shown to the right).

References

• Bolton, B. 1995b. A new general catalogue of the ants of the world. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 504 pp. (page 64, catalogue)
• Brown, W. L., Jr. 1978c. Contributions toward a reclassification of the Formicidae. Part VI. Ponerinae, tribe Ponerini, subtribe Odontomachiti. Section B. Genus Anochetus and bibliography. Stud. Entomol. 20: 549-638 (page 611, raised to species)
• Lubertazzi, D. 2019. The ants of Hispaniola. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 162(2), 59-210 (doi:10.3099/mcz-43.1).
• Wheeler, W. M. 1936c. Ants from Hispaniola and Mona Island. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 80: 195-211 (page 196, worker described)

References based on Global Ant Biodiversity Informatics

• Brandao, C.R.F. 1991. Adendos ao catalogo abreviado das formigas da regiao neotropical (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Rev. Bras. Entomol. 35: 319-412.
• 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.
• Fernández F. 2008. Subfamilia Ponerinae s.str. Pp. 123-218 in: Jiménez, E.; Fernández, F.; Arias, T.M.; Lozano-Zambrano F. H. (eds.) 2008. Sistemática, biogeografía y conservación de las hormigas cazadoras de Colombia. Bogotá: Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt, xiv + 609 pp.
• Kempf, W.W. 1972. Catalago abreviado das formigas da regiao Neotropical (Hym. Formicidae) Studia Entomologica 15(1-4).
• Lubertazzi D. 2019. The ants of Hispaniola. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 162(2): 59-210.
• Perez-Gelabert D. E. 2008. Arthropods of Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti): A checklist and bibliography. Zootaxa 1831:1-530.