Asphinctopone

Hawkes, 2010: Asphinctopone is a rarely encountered genus of ponerine ants, previously known only from the wet forest zones of West and central Africa. In the most recent revision of the genus Bolton & Fisher synonymised the three previously described species under Asphinctopone silvestrii Santschi and described one new but very closely related species, Asphinctopone differens Bolton & Fisher. A very distinctive new species, Asphinctopone pilosa sp. n., is described from Tanzania and represents the first record of this genus from East Africa.

Biology
Asphinctopone is one of the most rarely collected and least known small ponerine genera of the Afrotropical region. Specimens are seldom found and most samples recovered consist of only one or two workers. As a measure of its rarity, a survey of leaf litter in Ghana (Belshaw & Bolton, 1994) recorded 43,824 individual ants, of which only 5 (about 0.01%) were Asphinctopone. Despite this rarity, the genus is widespread in wet forest zones in leaf litter, topsoil, pieces of rotten wood and rotting vegetation on the forest floor. One worker has been found foraging in a fallen, abandoned termitary (Dejean et al., 1996). Beyond this nothing is known of its biology. Its specialised morphology implies that it may be prey-specific, but in reality its victims remain unknown. (Bolton and Fisher 2008)

Nomenclature

 *  ASPHINCTOPONE [Ponerinae: Ponerini]
 * Asphinctopone Santschi, 1914d: 318. Type-species: Asphinctopone silvestrii, by monotypy.
 * Asphinctopone senior synonym of Lepidopone: Brown, 1953h: 2.
 * LEPIDOPONE [junior synonym of Asphinctopone]
 * Lepidopone Bernard, 1953b: 207. Type-species: Lepidopone lamottei (junior synonym of Asphinctopone silvestrii), by monotypy.
 * Lepidopone junior synonym of Asphinctopone: Brown, 1953h: 2.

Additional References

 * [[Media:Bernard 1953b.pdf|Bernard, F. 1953b [1952]. La réserve naturelle intégrale du Mt Nimba. XI. Hyménoptères Formicidae. Mém. Inst. Fr. Afr. Noire 19: 165-270 PDF]]


 * [[Media:Bolton & Fisher 2008.pdf|BOLTON, B. & FISHER, B.L. 2008a. The Afrotropical ponerine ant genus Asphinctopone Santschi. Zootaxa 1827: 53-61. PDF]]


 * [[Media:Brown 1953h.pdf|Brown, W. L., Jr. 1953h. Characters and synonymies among the genera of ants. Part II. Breviora 18: 1-8 PDF]]


 * [[Media:Hawkes 2010.pdf|Hawkes, P. G. 2010. A new species of Asphinctopone (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Ponerinae) from Tanzania. Zootaxa. 2480:27-36. PDF]]


 * [[Media:Santschi 1914d.pdf|Santschi, F. 1914d. Formicides de l'Afrique occidentale et australe du voyage de Mr. le Professeur F. Silvestri. Boll. Lab. Zool. Gen. Agrar. R. Sc. Super. Agric. 8: 309-385 PDF]]