Hypoponera

These ants can be locally abundant with small colonies found in soil and leaf litter, under rocks or moist rotten wood. Workers are cryptic predators foraging in leaf litter and some species are known to specialise on Collembola. Some species are easily spread by human activity and many reproduce partly or entirely via worker-like (ergatoid) queens. In addition, several are known to have worker-like (ergatoid) males.

Called the "Crux Myrmecologorum" by W.L. Brown Jr., this genus is a byword for taxonomic complexity in the ants. It is especially rich with many morphologically similar species.



Worker of H. elliptica from Queensland.

Identification
The mandibles are triangular with numerous small teeth along their inner margins. The forward sections of the frontal lobes and antennal sockets are very close together and are separated by at most a very narrow rearward extension of the clypeus. The node of the petiole has distinct front, top and rear faces. The underside of the petiole (subpetiolar process) is uniformly convex and smooth. The tibiae of the hind legs each have a single large, comb-like (pectinate) spur at their tips (best viewed from the front).

Hypoponera belongs to a set of genera with similar overall body shape that includes Cryptopone, Pachycondyla and Ponera. Hypoponera differs from Cryptopone in lacking a depression or pit on the outer surface of the mandible near its attachment to the head and in having the hairs on the outer surface of the middle legs uniform in size (rather than two distinct size classes). It differs from Pachycondyla in having only a single comb-like spur on the hind leg (the simple spur found in Pachycondyla is missing), and from Ponera in having the underside of the petiole uniformly convex and smooth (rather than with a small thin spot and a pair of small teeth).

Distribution and Habitats
Australian distribution

Regional Species Lists

 * Australia

Keys to Species

 * Australia