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Taxonomic History (provided by Barry Bolton, 2022)

// Distribution

Distribution:

  Geographic regions (According to curated Geolocale/Taxon lists):
    Americas: Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama
  Biogeographic regions (According to curated Bioregion/Taxon lists):
    Neotropical

Distribution Notes:

Mexico to Panama, Colombia?, Ecuador. Costa Rica: lowland wet and moist forest sites throughout the country.

Biology:

Natural History:

This species is commonly encountered as workers in recent treefalls or canopy fogging samples from mature rainforest. It can nest in either live or dead branches. I have the following nest collections:

Whole branch sample from canopy of Vochysia ferruginea. A nest occurred in a 1-5cm diameter dead stick, in a 50cm long chamber.

Pasture edge/primary forest. Nest in two internodes of Cecropia insignis sapling.

A 2m section of bare, dead branch had recently fallen from the canopy. I found various ant nests in different parts of the branch, including a C. basalis nest.

Recent treefall; C. basalis workers abundant; an extensive colony occupied the live stems of a bignoniaceous vine tangle; there were many large round entrance holes.

Carapa guianensis felled one day previously; tree was somewhat isolated in low second growth vegetation; C. basalis was nesting in a cavity in a 5cm diameter live branch of the Carapa tree.

References:

Andrade, M. L. de, and C. Baroni Urbani. 1999. Diversity and adaptation in the ant genus Cephalotes, past and present (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Stuttgarter Beitrage zur Naturkunde Serie B (Geologie und Palaontologie) 271:1-889.

Emery, C. 1890. Studii sulle formiche della fauna neotropica. Bull. Soc. Entomol. Ital. 22:38-80.

Kempf, W. W. 1951. A taxonomic study on the ant tribe Cephalotini (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Rev. Entomol. (Rio J.) 22:1-244.

Smith, F. 1876. Descriptions of new species of Cryptoceridae, belonging to the genera Cryptocerus, Meranoplus, and Cataulacus. Trans. Entomol. Soc. Lond. 1876:603-612.

Specimen Habitat Summary

Found most commonly in these habitats: 17 times found in montane wet forest, 7 times found in rainforest, 1 times found in Pasture edge/primary forest, 3 times found in wet forest, 3 times found in CCL 840M, 2 times found in SURA 850M, 2 times found in rainforest edge, 3 times found in SSO 350m, 1 times found in STR, 2 times found in tropical wet forest, ...

Found most commonly in these microhabitats: 1 times in Cecropia insignis sapling, 4 times beating vegetation, 1 times nest in dead stick in canopy, 3 times in treefall, 3 times in fresh treefall, 1 times in dead branch, 3 times ex sifted leaf litter, 2 times strays, 3 times Sobre Vegetacion, 1 times recently felled Carapa guianensis, in live stem, 1 times on tree, ...

Collected most commonly using these methods: 38 times fogging, 19 times Search, 14 times Malaise, 5 times Beating, 3 times Sweeping, 2 times Foggin, 1 times hand collecting, 2 times miniWinkler, 1 times maxiWinkler, 1 times beating low vegetation, 1 times beating vegetation and hand collections (2 hours), ...

Elevations: collected from 5 - 1760 meters, 278 meters average

Collect Date Range: collected between 1895-03-01 and 2020-01-20

Type specimens: Holotype of Cephalotes basalis: casent0900246; type of Cryptocerus cordatus multispinus: focol2145

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