Buniapone amblyops oculatior

Buniapone amblyops oculatior
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Hymenoptera
Family:	Formicidae
Subfamily:	Ponerinae
Tribe:	Ponerini
Genus:	Buniapone
Species:	B. amblyops
Subspecies:	B. amblyops oculatior
Trinomial name
	Buniapone amblyops oculatior; (Forel, 1909)

Virtually nothing is known about the habits of Buniapone, other than that they are hypogeic. They are presumably predatory, though their prey preferences are unknown. One of us (CS) observed large numbers of Buniapone amblyops workers congregated at a palm oil bait sunk into the ground, suggesting that they are not strictly carnivorous and that they may employ some kind of nestmate recruitment to food sources, like their sister genus Paltothyreus. (Schmidt and Shattuck 2014)

Identification

Buniapone is a morphologically distinctive genus and its workers are readily identified by the following combination of characters: long and narrow toothed mandibles, blunt medial clypeal projection, greatly reduced eyes, obsolete metanotal groove, ovoid propodeal spiracles, complex metapleural gland orifice, and squamiform petiole. Superficially, Buniapone most closely resembles Centromyrmex, Promyopias, and certain Neotropical Cryptopone species, but Buniapone has eyes, lacks the anterolateral position of the metapleural gland orifice of Centromyrmex, lacks the linear mandibles of Promyopias, and lacks the small closely approximated frontal lobes and circular propodeal spiracles of Cryptopone. Though Buniapone shares several apomorphies with its sister genus Paltothyreus, they are superficially very different and unlikely to be confused. Myopias also has a blunt medial clypeal projection, but it is much more pronounced than in Buniapone, and Myopias lacks the other characters diagnostic of Buniapone. (Schmidt and Shattuck 2014)

Distribution

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists

Indo-Australian Region: Indonesia (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

Castes

Nomenclature

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

oculatior. Euponera (Pseudoponera) amblyops var. oculatior Forel, 1909d: 221 (q.) INDONESIA (Java).
- Type-material: holotype queen.
- Type-locality: Indonesia: Java, Batavia (= Jakarta) (E. Jacobson).
- Type-depository: MHNG.
- Combination in Pseudoponera: Emery, 1911d: 87;
- combination in Pachycondyla: Brown, in Bolton, 1995b: 308;
- combination in Buniapone: Schmidt, C.A. & Shattuck, 2014: 83.
- Subspecies of amblyops: Emery, 1911d: 87; Chapman & Capco, 1951: 74; Bolton, 1995b: 308.
- Distribution: Indonesia (Java).

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

Description

References

Brown, W. L., Jr. 1995a. [Untitled. Taxonomic changes in Pachycondyla attributed to Brown.] Pp. 302-311 in: Bolton, B. A new general catalogue of the ants of the world. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 504 pp. (page 308, Combination in Pachycondyla)
Emery, C. 1911e. Hymenoptera. Fam. Formicidae. Subfam. Ponerinae. Genera Insectorum 118: 1-125 (page 87, Combination in Pseudoponera)
Forel, A. 1909i. Ameisen aus Java und Krakatau beobachtet und gesammelt von Herrn Edward Jacobson. Notes Leyden Mus. 31: 221-232 (page 221, queen described)
Schmidt, C.A. & Shattuck, S.O. 2014. The higher classification of the ant subfamily Ponerinae (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), with a review of ponerine ecology and behavior. Zootaxa 3817, 1–242 (doi:10.11646/zootaxa.381*Subedi, I.P. 2021. New record of the Ponerine ant Buniapone amblyops (Emery, 1887) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from Nepal. Nepalese Journal of Zoology 5(2): 62–67 (doi:[https://doi.org/10.3126%2Fnjz.v5i2.42034 10.3126/njz.v5i2.42034).

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