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Taxonomic History (provided by Barry Bolton, 2017)

Distribution:

(based on species list records)
Nearctic Region: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North America, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, United States
Neotropical Region: Americas, Baja Verapaz, Central America, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Jinotega, Nicaragua, Olancho, Puntarenas
Palearctic Region: Georgia

Distribution Notes:

Southeastern United States, southern Mexico to Costa Rica. Costa Rica: cloud forests of Cordillera de Tilaran, Cordillera Volcanica Central, Cordillera de Talamanca.

Biology:

Longino notes: In Costa Rica, Cryptopone gilva is restricted to cloud forest habitats. For example, it is common in the ridge crest cloud forest in the Monteverde area (1400-1600m), rare around "El Aleman" at the head of the Penas Blancas Valley (900m), and absent at Casa Eladio further down the valley (800m). In Monteverde it is common under loose bark of dead wood and under epiphyte mats in the low arboreal zone: ground level to a few meters high. I often encounter lone founding queens. I find colonies in logs at a certain stage of decay, when the bark comes off in intact sheets, and there is a thin layer of decayed humus between the bark and the still hard wood. Workers are found thinly scattered in anastomosing tunnels in the humus layer. As a bark sheet is peeled away one to five workers may be revealed, which quickly disappear into holes in the wood and under adjacent bark. I have never been able to collect more than a few dozen workers from a colony, and I have never found an obvious colony center or distinct galleries with aggregations of workers and brood. Occasional larvae and pupae occur in the tunnels. The nesting behavior is very similar to that of Typhlomyrmex rogenhoferi, a species more common at lower elevations.

Specimens are occasionally taken in samples of sifted leaf litter (Winkler samples).

Comments:

Longino notes, 9 Nov 2013: DNA barcoding data show all in one cluster, but a split separating two clusters. One cluster contains specimens from two sites: Guisayote in Honduras and Biotopo El Quetzal in Guatemala. The other cluster contains specimens that range from Mexico to Costa Rica.

References:

Brown, W. L., Jr. 1963. Characters and synonymies amoung the genera of ants. Part III. Some members of the tribe Ponerini (Ponerinae, Formicidae). Breviora 190:1-10.

Forel, A. 1899. Formicidae. Biol. Cent.-Am. Hym. 3:1-160.

Kempf, W. W. 1972. Catalogo abreviado das formigas da Regiao Neotropical. Studia Entomol. 15:3-344.

Menozzi, C. 1931. Qualche nuova Formica di Costa Rica (Hym.). Stettiner Entomologische Zeitung 92:188-202.

Roger, J. 1863. Die neu aufgefuehrten Gattungen und Arten meines Formiciden-Verzeichnisses nebst Erganzung einiger frueher gegebenen Beschreibungen. Berl. Entomol. Z. 7:131-214.

Specimen Habitat Summary

Found most commonly in these habitats: 8 times found in montane wet forest, 1 times found in post Oak, White Oak, Red Oak, Hickory forest, 1 times found in rainforest, 1 times found in sawdust pile, 1 times found in tulip treehole, 1 times found in wet floor, fern islands, 1 times found in bottomland, 1 times found in woodland, 1 times found in disturbed pine/Liquidambar forest, 1 times found in xeric hammock, ...

Found most commonly in these microhabitats: 4 times rotten wood, 1 times under moss mat, 1 times swampy riparian woodland; under loose bark of fallen log., 2 times nest in rotten wood, 3 times ex rotten log, 1 times under bark, 2 times ex Berlese, 1 times under bark of stump, 1 times in pine log.

Collected most commonly using these methods: 8 times hand collecting, 4 times Berlese, 1 times hand coll., 1 times malaise trap.

Elevations: collected from 20 - 1950 meters, 1054 meters average

Type specimens: Lectotype of Euponera obsoleta: casent0915270; type of Euponera obsoleta: focol0354-1, focol0354-2; type of Ponera gilva: focol0978, focol0979

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