Pheidole clydei

This species utilizes an unusual nest site: rock crevices. Gregg (l953b) found a colony nesting in crevices between a boulder and thin laminae split from its surface, with no contact with the soil. Creighton (l965a) found nests on top of large boulders 4.5 meters high and 6-9 meters across, while G. E. Wheeler and J. N. Wheeler (1973e) encountered them in very narrow horizontal cracks in the almost solid rock walls of Califomia's Deep Canyon. At the last locality, according to Wheeler and Wheeler, "The minors did the foraging, bringing home arthropods or fragments thereof, never seeds. The majors did not leave the nests except to assist minors by carving large pieces of foraged food into smaller bits. But their chief duty appeared to be guard duty: a group of them stood just inside the entrance, where they savagely attacked any object thrust into the nest entrance. The minors, by contrast, were not aggressive, which suggests they are scavengers, not predators." Recent discoveries made by Stefan Cover in Arizona indicate that clydei is a member of a small guild of rock-crevice-inhabiting Pheidole that includes Pheidole portalensis n. sp. Several other members of this guild recently found remain undescribed at present. Like these species, P. clydei is only occasionally found in soil or under rocks some distance from rock-crevice habitats. (Wilson 2003)

Identification
See the description in the nomenclature section.

Distribution
Recorded from New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and southern California. (Wilson 2003)

This taxon was described from the United States.

Nomenclature

 *  clydei. Pheidole (Ceratopheidole) clydei Gregg, 1950: 89, fig. 1 (w.) U.S.A. Gregg, 1953b: 1 (s.). See also: Creighton, 1965a: 169; Wilson, 2003: 539.

Description
From Wilson (2003): DIAGNOSIS A member of the granulata group (4-segmented club), close to Pheidole grundmanni and distinguished as follows.

Major (no comparison available with grundmanni): hypostoma with only 2 teeth; all of dorsal surface of head longitudinally carinulate; dorsal promesonotal profile in side view smoothly semicircular; petiolar node in side view tapering to a blunt point; postpetiolar node from above conulate.

Minor: propodeal spine needle-like, as long as half the length of the basal propodeal face anterior to it; petiolar node depressed, and petiole as a whole cylindrical; occiput narrow in full-face view, and shallowly concave; the cephalic foveolation is variable, and can occasionally cover the entire upper surface of the head, in which case the carinulae of the head may extend posteriorly between the eye and the antennal insertions; sides of pronotum foveolate and opaque. In habitus and number of hypostomal teeth, this species is evidently a derivative of the pilifera group.

MEASUREMENTS (mm) Major: HW 1.20, HL 1.32, SL 0.72, EL 0.20, PW 0.62. Syntype minor: HW 0.50, HL 0.66, SL 0.78, EL 0.14, PW 0.34.

COLOR Major: head and mesosoma concolorous reddish yellow; waist, gaster, and appendages contrasting light reddish brown.

Minor: body and legs concolorous light brown, mandibles and antennae brownish yellow.



'''Figure. Upper: major. Lower: minor. CALIFORNIA: Split Mountain, Anza State Park, near Palm Springs, 150 m, col. W. S. Creighton. Scale bars = 1 mm.'''

Type Material

 * holotype minor may be at the Field Museum, Chicago - as reported in Wilson (2003)

Type Locality Information
Carizozo, vicinity of the lava beds ofthe Tularosa Basin, New Mexico; col. C. P. Stroud. (Wilson 2003)

Etymology
Eponymous. (Wilson 2003)

Additional References
Gregg, R. E. 1950. A new species of Pheidole from the Southwest. J. New York Entomol. Soc. 58: 89–93.

Gregg, R. E. 1953. The soldier caste of Pheidole (Ceratopheidole) clydei Gregg (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Am. Mus. Novit. 1637:1–7.

[[Media:Creighton 1965a.pdf|Creighton, W. S. 1965a ("1964"). The habits of Pheidole (Ceratopheidole) clydei Gregg (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Psyche (Cambridge) 71:169-173. [1965-03-06 PDF]]

Wheeler, G. C. and J. Wheeler. 1973. Ants of Deep Canyon. Riverside, Calif.: U. of California, xiii + 162 pp.

Text and images from this publication used by permission of the author.