Pseudoneoponera rufipes

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Pseudoneoponera rufipes
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Formicidae
Subfamily: Ponerinae
Tribe: Ponerini
Genus: Pseudoneoponera
Species: P. rufipes
Binomial name
Pseudoneoponera rufipes
(Jerdon, 1851)

Pachycondyla rufipes casent0217566 p 1 high.jpg

Pachycondyla rufipes casent0217566 d 1 high.jpg

Specimen Labels

Subspecies

These large ants can produce a foamy secretion from their gaster that is used for a defense.

Photo Gallery

  • Pseudoneoponera rufipes worker from Kerala, India. Photo by Kalesh Sadasivan.
  • Pseudoneoponera rufipes worker from Kerala, India. Photo by Kalesh Sadasivan.

Identification

Distribution

Latitudinal Distribution Pattern

Latitudinal Range: 32.812778° to 6.333055556°.

   
North
Temperate
North
Subtropical
Tropical South
Subtropical
South
Temperate

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists

Indo-Australian Region: Singapore.
Oriental Region: India (type locality), Laos, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam.
Palaearctic Region: China.

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

Castes

Images from AntWeb

Pachycondyla rufipes casent0249191 p 1 high.jpgPachycondyla rufipes casent0249191 d 1 high.jpgPachycondyla rufipes casent0249191 h 1 high.jpgPachycondyla rufipes casent0249191 l 1 high.jpg
Worker. Specimen code casent0249191. Photographer Will Ericson, uploaded by California Academy of Sciences. Owned by PSWC, Philip S. Ward Collection.

Nomenclature

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

  • rufipes. Ponera rufipes Jerdon, 1851: 119 (w.) INDIA (Karnataka/Kerala; “Malabar”).
    • Type-material: syntype workers (number not stated).
    • Type-locality: India: Malabar (T.C. Jerdon).
    • Type-depository: unknown (no material known to exist).
    • [Note: Donisthorpe, 1932c: 447, points out that two specimens (BMNH, OXUM) labelled as “type” are not type-material; correctly they are rufipes Jerdon, sensu Smith, F. 1857a: 67, sensu Smith, F. 1858b: 106.]
    • [Duplicated in Jerdon, 1854b: 102.]
    • [Misspelled as ruficeps by Chapman & Capco, 1951: 50.]
    • Combination in Pachycondyla: Smith, F. 1858b: 106;
    • combination in P. (Bothroponera): Emery, 1901a: 45;
    • combination in Bothroponera: Mayr, 1867a: 83; Wheeler, W.M. 1919e: 55;
    • combination in Pachycondyla: Brown, in Bolton, 1995b: 309;
    • combination in Pseudoneoponera: Schmidt, C.A. & Shattuck, 2014: 135.
    • Status as species: Smith, F. 1857a: 67; Smith, F. 1858b: 106; Roger, 1860: 287; Mayr, 1863: 450; Mayr, 1867a: 83 (redescription); Forel, 1886d: 246; Mayr, 1886c: 359; Emery, 1887b: 442 (in key, footnote); Emery, 1889b: 495; André, 1892b: 53; Dalla Torre, 1893: 36; Emery, 1895k: 459; Forel, 1900d: 326; Bingham, 1903: 96; Forel, 1906b: 91; Forel, 1907e: 17; Forel, 1908a: 1; Emery, 1911d: 76; Forel, 1915a: 22; Wheeler, W.M. 1919e: 55; Santschi, 1920h: 159; Santschi, 1924c: 96, 97; Mukerjee & Ribeiro, 1925: 206; Wheeler, W.M. 1927h: 84; Wheeler, W.M. 1928c: 5; Donisthorpe, 1929a: 445; Wheeler, W.M. 1930h: 59; Donisthorpe, 1932c: 447; Menozzi, 1939a: 328; Chapman & Capco, 1951: 50; Collingwood, 1962: 224; Collingwood, 1970: 372; Tang, C. & Li, 1982: 371; Radchenko, 1993a: 79; Bolton, 1995b: 309; Wu, J. & Wang, 1995: 45; Tang, J., Li, et al. 1995: 40; Tiwari, 1999: 28; Mathew & Tiwari, 2000: 288; Zhou, 2001b: 49; Ghosh, et al. 2005: 8; Jaitrong & Nabhitabhata, 2005: 31; Mohanraj, et al. 2010: 7; Zhou & Ran, 2010: 108; Guénard & Dunn, 2012: 61; Bharti, Guénard, et al. 2016: 53; Jaitrong, Guénard, et al. 2016: 43; Rasheed, et al. 2019: 435.
    • [Note: rufipes erroneously included in key to species of Brachyponera: Mathew & Tiwari, 2000: 286.]
    • Distribution: China, India (+ Andaman Is), Indonesia (Kalimantan, Simeulue), Laos, Malaysia (“Borneo”, Peninsula), Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam.
    • Current subspecies: nominal plus ceylonensis.

Description

Unless otherwise noted the text for the remainder of this section is reported from Bingham (1903) described as Bothroponera rufipes.

Worker

Dull black; the mandibles, antennae and legs castaneous red, the apical two or three abdominal segments bright ferruginous; the whole insect covered with an abundant pale reddish-yellow pilosity. Head, thorax and node of the pedicel in front coarsely punctured, cribrate; the basal two abdominal segments rugose with remarkably coarse longitudinal ridges, the intervals between them coarsely punctured; the apical segments finely punctured, the yellowish-red hair on them long and thick. Mandibles obsoletely, finely, longitudinally striate and marked with some coarse shallow punctures, the teeth on the masticatory margin often worn and obsolete; clypeus with a medial, often ill-defined, short carina at base; antenna? densely pubescent, finely rugulose, opaque; eyes comparatively small: occiput slightly emarginate, the anterior border of the emargination and the posterior lateral angles of the head rounded. Thorax massive, as broad in front as the head, convex; the apical truncated face of the metanotum concave, smooth and shining, and strongly margined above and on the sides; legs opaque, densely pilose and pubescent. Node of the pedicel about twice as broad as long, convex and rounded above, the spinous processes on the posterior margin above irregular, not very acute; the posterior face of the node deeply concave, smooth and shining; abdomen very massive, cylindrical, the constriction between the basal two segments well marked.

Length: 13-15 mm.


Karyotype

  • n = 24, 2n = 48, karyotype = 20M+28A (India) (Imai et al., 1984; Mariano et al., 2015) (as Bothroponera rufipes).

References

References based on Global Ant Biodiversity Informatics

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