Myrmicaria brunnea

Myrmicaria brunnea and Myrmicaria vidua inhabit various habitats such as fruit gardens, sparse forests, forest edges and well-developed forests, and nest in soil, often building big mounds with soil particles. Workers scavenge dead animals and also tend homopterans. (Eguchi, Bui and Yamane 2011)

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists
Oriental Region: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam. Palaearctic Region: China.

Nomenclature

 *  brunnea. Myrmicaria brunnea Saunders, W.W. 1842: 57, pl. 5, fig. 2 (m.) INDIA. Bingham, 1903: 118 (w.q.); Imai, Baroni Urbani, et al. 1984: 6 (k.). See also: Forel, 1903a: 708; Karavaiev, 1935a: 80. Current subspecies: nominal plus flava, subcarinata.

Description
Worker

Bingham (1903): Chestnut-brown, shining; mandibles finely and closely, head and thorax more or less widely, longitudinally striate; the nodes of the pedicel smooth or only slightly rugulose; abdomen polished and smooth; pilosity long, abundant, reddish yellow, slightly oblique ou the antennse and legs. For the rest the characters of the genus.

Length: 5.5 - 8 mm

Queen

Bingham (1903): Resembles the worker in colour; the mandibles are more coarsely striate, the clypeus is smooth, the front between the antennae and the cheeks longitudinally striate, the head posteriorly on the vertex and lateral angles coarsely reticulate. Thorax: the pronotum somewhat vaguely and transversely and the mesonotum posteriorly longitudinally striate; anteriorly the latter is smooth and polished, the scutellum rugose, the metanotum irregularly striate rugose, including the basal portion of the metanotal spines. Pedicel: the nodes rugulose, opaque; abdomen smooth, polished and shining. Wings hyaline ; nervures brownish.

Length: 12 - 13 mm

Male

Bingham (1903): Light chestnut-yellow, the apical margins of the abdominal segments more or less broadly brownish black; head and thorax somewhat densely pubescent, in places rugulose, giving them a dull subopaque black: head on each side of the ocelli longitudinally striate. Some few striae on the mesonotum posteriorly and on the basal portion of the metanotum, traces of the same on the apical face of the latter. Pedicel obscurely rugulose, sub opaque; abdomen smooth, shining, but not highly polished. Wings flavo-hyaline ; nervures yellowish.

Length: 10 - 11 mm

References based on Global Ant Biodiversity Informatics

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