Platythyrea punctata

Distribution
Widely distributed throughout the Caribbean islands, Florida, and Mesoamerica.

This taxon was described from Central America.

It is found in the United States, Costa Rica, Brazil, Colombia, Suriname, French Guiana, Guyana, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Dominican Republic, Greater Antilles, Lesser Antilles, Bahamas, Saint Lucia, and Barbados.

Biology
Brown (1957) reporting in a paper about collections by Robert L. Dressler from Chiapas, Mexico: "from a nest in a fallen log, August 3. Winged forms were present, the males being fully pigmented and apparently active, while most of the females were still in the callow stage or were not yet eclosed. Wilson found this ant foraging on tree trunks after dark in Veracruz and Cuba."

Reproduction
This ant can reproduce through thelytokous parthenogenesis. This means that mothers can produce diploid, female offspring from unfertilized eggs. Kellner and Heinze (2011) found "that automixis with central fusion and a reduced recombination rate is the most likely mechanism of thelytoky, as in the Cape honeybee and the ant Cataglyphis cursor. Workers in many field colonies from the Caribbean Islands have identical multilocus genotypes and are thus probably clonal."

Reproductive strategy does vary across populations. Colonies in Costa Rica, for example, produce males and reproductives are mated workers. Caribbean populations typically do not produce males.

Haiti
Mann reported finding foragers "running about on the ground in shady places" (Wheeler and Mann 1936).

Nomenclature

 *  punctata. Pachycondyla punctata Smith, F. 1858b: 108 (w.m.) CENTRAL AMERICA. Forel, 1893g: 358 (q.). Wheeler, W.M. 1905b: 81 (l.). Combination in Platythyrea: Roger, 1863a: 173. Senior synonym of cineracea: Brown, 1975: 9; of pruinosa: Wheeler, W.M. 1908a: 123; Brown, 1975: 9.
 * pruinosa. Platythyrea pruinosa Mayr, 1870b: 962 (w.) MEXICO. Forel, 1893g: 358 (m.). Subspecies of punctata: Forel, 1901f: 335; Wheeler, W.M. 1917g: 457; Wheeler, W.M. 1923c: 3. Junior synonym of punctata: Wheeler, W.M. 1908a: 123; Brown, 1975: 9.
 * cineracea. Platythyrea cineracea Forel, 1886b: xxxix (w.) GUATEMALA. Forel, 1899c: 4 (m.). Subspecies of punctata: Forel, 1893g: 359; Forel, 1912c: 35. Junior synonym of punctata: Brown, 1975: 9.

Worker
Length 3 1/4 lines. —Black: the antennae, mandibles, margins of the carinae between the antennae, the legs and apex of the abdomen, ferruginous; the head, thorax, node of the peduncle, and first segment of the abdomen with deep scattered punctures; the insect covered with grey pile; the metatborax truncate, the truncation slightly concave; the node of the peduncle incrassate, elevated to the same height as the first segment, elongated, and forming as it were a basal segment; the apical margin of the first segment ferruginous.

Male
About the same size as the worker, which it greatly resembles, differing in the usual sexual distinctions of a smaller head, larger eyes; the ocelli very bright and glassy; the wings subhyaline, the nervures testaceous, the stigma fuscous.

Type Material
Hab. St. Domingo.

Additional References

 * Kellner, K. & Heinze, J. 2011. Mechanism of facultative parthenogenesis in the ant Platythyrea punctata. Evolutionary Ecology 25, 77-89.
 * Kellner, K., Seal, J.N. & Heinze, J. 2012. Sex at the margins: parthenogenesis vs. facultative and obligate sex in a Neotropical ant. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 26, 108-117.
 * Wheeler, W. M. and W. M. Mann. 1914. The ants of Haiti. Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. 33: 1-61.