Eutetramorium

Eutetramorium is a small genus of ants within the subfamily Myrmicinae. To date it contains three species found in Madagascar and Comoros.[3]

Eutetramorium
E. monticellii worker from Comoros
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Class:
Insecta
Order:
Hymenoptera
Family:
Formicidae
Subfamily:
Myrmicinae
Tribe:
Crematogastrini
Genus:
Eutetramorium

Emery, 1899
Type species
Eutetramorium mocquerysi[1]
Emery, 1899
Diversity[2]
3 species

Species
  • Eutetramorium mocquerysi Emery 1899 – Madagascar
  • Eutetramorium monticellii Emery 1899 – Comoros
  • Eutetramorium parvum Bolton & Fisher, 2014 – Madagascar

Description

The queen is extremely ergatoid in E. mocquerysi, alate in E. monticellii. In E. parvum a normal dealate queen is present in the type-series, but there is also a specimen that may be an ergatoid or a worker-queen intercaste, or possibly merely an oversized worker. Males are known only for E. mocquerysi, where it is smaller than conspecific workers.[3]

Taxonomy

This small genus was established by Emery (1899) for two conspicuous, large, darkly coloured Madagascan species that superficially resemble Tetramorium. Initially, Emery (1912, 1914) was of the opinion that the genus was referable to the tribe Myrmecinini, but Ashmead (1905) and Wheeler (1910) had already referred it to Tetramoriini, an opinion that Emery (1915, 1924) also came to accept. Bolton (1976) excluded Eutetramorium from Tetramoriini on morphological grounds, and tentatively transferred it to Myrmicini. This placement persisted until recently, when a molecular analysis of Myrmicini by Jansen & Savolainen (2010) showed that the monophyly of the tribe was dubious, and that Eutetramorium formed a clade with Huberia. The yet unpublished, more detailed, DNA analysis of Myrmicinae by Philip S. Ward has established that Eutetramorium belongs in a strongly supported, endemic Madagascan clade that also includes the other four genera: Malagidris, Myrmisaraka, Royidris and Vitsika.[3]

gollark: I mostly just rewrite stuff by components, it's much easier.
gollark: Why even rewrite then?
gollark: There's one known in-the-wild exploit, another alleged one, and one hypothetical one I thought of when working on some other components.
gollark: It might not, really, assuming I do most things the same.
gollark: I would lose out on so many of the accumulated bugfixes.

References
  2. Bolton, B. (2014). "Eutetramorium". AntCat. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
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