Topic
Vespoidea
About: Vespoidea is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1365 publications have been published within this topic receiving 11769 citations.
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TL;DR: The 102 species of ants known to occur on the Archbold Biological Station in Highlands Co., Florida are listed with annotations on their habitat and microhabitat preferences and timing of nuptial flights.
Abstract: The 102 species of ants known to occur on the Archbold Biological Station in Highlands Co., Florida are listed with annotations on their habitat and microhabitat preferences and timing of nuptial flights. The diversity of the fauna results from the confluence of several biogeographic groups of ants. Several species are endemic to the xeric scrub of central Florida, which was an insular refugium during Pleistocene or Pliocene flooding. About 20 species are exotic, of which 6 have invaded scrub habitats. The invasibility of south Florida to exotic ants and the biogeographic affinities of native ants are discussed.
38 citations
TL;DR: The purpose of this contribution is to list and key the workers of the knmvn species of Simopelta, to describe two new species of the genus, and to set forth on the behavior of one species some o.bservations that will establish that it follows the army-ant way of life in important respects.
Abstract: The taxonomic history of Simopelta (subfamily Ponerinae, tribe Ponerini) has been discussed in detail by W. M. Wheeler (I935) and by Borgmeier (I95O). Borgmeier was the first to describe the queen of any species in the genus that of S. peryandei-which he showed deserved to be called \"dichthadiiform\", or belonging to a particular form of queen caste characterized by extreme reduction or loss of eyes, loss of wings, hypertrophy of petiole and gaster, and other characters. He explained its \"great similarity to certain females of Eciton\" by \"convergence in its hypogaeic way o,f life\", a statement that is puzzling because, as Father Borgmeier well knows, .Eciton is. not really \"hypogaeic\" in its habits, at least as compared to the majority of ants that spend most of their time on or below the ground level. _At any rate, as we shall show in this paper, the. convergence between the queens of at least one Simopelta species and certain army ants, so discerningly noted by Father Borgmeier, is only one aspect of the army-ant or legionary lifeform that two and perhaps all Simopelta species share with the \"true\" army ants of subfamily Dorylinae. It is the purpose of this contribution to list and key the workers of the knmvn species of Simopelta, to describe two new species of the genus, and to set forth on the behavior of one species some o.bservations, however fragmentary, that will establish that it follows the army-ant way of life in important respects.
38 citations