Template:Overview/Oxyepoecus

The following account of the biology of species in the genus is modified from Kempf (1974), with much of what was stated then still holding true regarding the paucity of biological information about these ants.

Our knowledge of Oxyepoecus ants still rests exclusively on chance discoveries. Since about 95% of the known specimens were taken as strays in berlesates of forest floor cover, very little may be said about the biology of Oxyepoecus species except for being denizens or at least foragers in this particular habitat.

With the type species having been found in the nest of another ant species and the relative low number of collections made of members of this genus, it was once possible to speculate this genus might not contain any free living species. Independent colonies seem to be vouched for by Oxyepoecus punctifrons and Oxyepoecus rastratus. The types of the former, collected at Rio Negro, Paraná State, Brazil, came from a nest that had over 60 workers living by themselves, but no further information is available. I have found a few workers of the same species, at Campos do Jordão, São Paulo State, Brazil, on a dead twig, between the bark and an overgrown cover consisting of lichens and mosses. The types of the var. luederwaldti (= rastratus) are from a very small colony nesting under the bark in a simple cavity within the alburnum of a tree (Luederwaldt, 1926: 275). Lenko's rastratus specimens from Caraça, Minas Gerais State, had their nest within a decaying log on the ground in a forest.

Evidence also exists for symbiotic relationships between several Oxyepoecus species and other Myrmicinae ants (details provided here).