Odontoponera

Odontoponera is a small Southeast Asia genus of ants in the subfamily Ponerinae.[3]

Odontoponera
Odontoponera sp. feeding on an earthworm
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Class:
Insecta
Order:
Hymenoptera
Family:
Formicidae
Subfamily:
Ponerinae
Tribe:
Ponerini
Genus:
Odontoponera

Mayr, 1862[1]
Type species
Ponera denticulata
Smith, F., 1858
Diversity[2]
2 species

Description

Workers are medium in size (9–12 mm); queens are similar to workers but larger (11–13 mm) and winged.[4]

Distribution

Its two species are restricted to Southeast Asia, distributed from India in the west to the Philippines in the east, and from southern China further south down to Indonesia.[4] The ants are locally abundant, with O. denticulata having the widest distribution of the species, from mainland Asia to the Philippines and Sundaland; O. transversa is found from the Malay Peninsula south to the islands of Sundaland.[5]

Taxonomy

Odontoponera was established by Mayr (1862) to house the species Ponera denticulata (now Odontoponera denticulata), placing it in the subfamily Ponerinae. O. denticulata was later synonymized with O. transversa, but was revived as a species by Yamane (2009).[5] Molecular phylogeny by Schmidt's (2013) placed the genus in the Odontomachus group, although it is not closely related to any other genus.[4] The name means "toothed Ponera",[6] incorporating the prefix odonto-.

Species
  • Odontoponera denticulata (Smith, 1858)
  • Odontoponera transversa (Smith, 1857)

References
  1. Mayr, G. (1862). "Myrmecologische Studien". Verhandlungen der Kaiserlich-Königlichen Zoologisch-Botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien. 12: 649–776.
  2. Bolton, B. (2015). "Odontoponera". AntCat. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
  3. "Genus: Odontoponera". antweb.org. AntWeb. Retrieved 23 September 2013.
  4. Schmidt, C. A; Shattuck, S. O. (2014). "The Higher Classification of the Ant Subfamily Ponerinae (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), with a Review of Ponerine Ecology and Behavior" (PDF). Zootaxa. 3817 (1): 1–242. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3817.1.1. PMID 24943802.
  5. Yamane, S. (2009). "Odontoponera denticulata (F. Smith) (Formicidae: Ponerinae), a distinct species inhabiting disturbed areas". Ari. 32: 1–8.
  6. Wheeler, George C. (1956). Myrmecological Orthoepy and Onomatology (PDF). University of North Dakota Press. pp. 4, 17.


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