Odontomachus insularis

The last taxonomic revision of Odontomachus (Brown 1976) revealed a tangle of names, subspecies and varieties for this and numerous allied forms. Odontomachus insularis is known to occur in the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas. Its presence in other areas is tenuous pending a more thorough taxonomic revision.

Identification
Brown (1976) - O. insularis has cephalic striation so fine that Guerin could not see it when he wrote the original description, and it has a sericeous look at lower magnifications. The male is black or piceous in color, with a brown gaster, and the worker has palpal segmentation 4, 3. In addition to the many records of insularis from Cuba (type locality) and the Bahamas, I have seen a single worker labeled as from Diquini, Haiti (W. M. Mann).

Odontomachus clarus is a very closely related species replacing insularis on the continent, where it ranges from Central Texas and southern Arizona southward in Mexico at least to Mexico City and the state of Guerrero, apparently mainly in arid and semiarid areas on the Mexican Plateau and in the cordilleras. Although it is more variable in size and color, clarus is like insularis, and it also shares with insularis the dark-colored male and 4, 3 palpal segmentation. In fact, the only reliable worker character I can find to separate the two is the different development of the acute apex of the petiolar node. In insularis, the node narrows fairly abruptly (in side view) to a long, thin, backcurved spine, which may occupy a quarter or more of the total height of the node. In O. clarus, the node as seen from the side tapers rapidly to a much shorter spine, which often is not really a spine at all, but simply a sharp conical apex.

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists
Neotropical Region: Cuba, Dominican Republic, Greater Antilles, Grenada, Haiti, Lesser Antilles, Mexico, Saint Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago.

It is also found in Mexico, Dominican Republic, Saint Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago and Grenada (but see above concerning this ant's taxonomy and distribution).

Nomenclature

 *  insularis. Odontomachus insularis Guérin-Méneville, 1844a: 423 (w.m.) CUBA. Forel, 1897b: 298 (q.). Subspecies of haematodus: Emery, 1890b: 44 (footnote); Smith, M.R. 1939d: 127. Revived status as species: Taylor & Wilson, 1962: 142. Material of the unavailable names pallens, wheeleri referred here by Brown, 1976a: 104.

Brown (1976) - Odontomachus insularis, as determined from the type worker, here designated as lectotype, in Paris, and confirmed by the original description, is the reddish form with yellowish appendages and dark (piceous or black) gaster, common and widespread in Cuba and the Bahamas. So far as I have been able to determine from actual specimens, the true insularis does not occur on the continent of North America or in the Florida Keys, although it would not be surprising to find it somewhere in Florida. The varieties pallens and wheeleri are just the ordinary insularis, judging from their types. In var. wheeleri, the dorsum of the propodeum and the petiole are perhaps more yellowish than usual, but this condition is approached by occasional workers in other nest series. Wheeler described pallens, apparently, while thinking the dark Cuban species, here referred to as O. brunneus, was insularis.

Type Material
Brown (1976) designated a specimen in the as the lectotype.