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Taxonomic History (provided by Barry Bolton, 2017)

Distribution:

(based on species list records)
Neotropical Region: Americas, Aragua, Cartago, Central America, Colombia, Costa Caribe Norte, Costa Rica, Heredia, Honduras, Jinotega, Limón, Matagalpa, Mexico, Nicaragua, Oaxaca, Ocotepeque, Puntarenas, South America, Venezuela

Distribution Notes:

Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Venezuela. Costa Rica: Atlantic and southern Pacific wet forest around 500m elevation.

Biology:

Brown and Wilson (1959) summarize the genus as follows:

"Widespread in tropics and warm temperate areas. Primarily forest-dwelling; some species occur in grassland and arid scrub. ... Nests mostly in soil and rotting wood; a few species live in arboreal plant cavities in tropical rain forest. Foraging hypogaeic to epigaeic-arboreal. Food: most species are collembolan feeders; a few are polyphagous predators or occasionally feed on sugary substances..."

Members of the genus are all predaceous, with a kinetic mode of attack (Bolton 1999).

This species inhabits wet forest leaf litter. Lattke and Goitia (1997) discovered the species in 800m elevation cloud forest on the Paria Peninsula of Venezuela. They speculated that the species might be endemic to this cloud forest area, but its occurrence in mid-elevation wet forest sites in Costa Rica shows that it is more widespread than thought. Like so many leaf litter arthropods, its rarity may be due more to undersampling than to narrow endemism.

Identification:

Like a robust version of elongata. Gastral setae are curved, like elongata, but with thicker bases, and not as strongly flagellate. The propodeal spines are a bit larger.

Comments:

Longino notes, 9 Nov 2013: In Central America, Strumigenys elongata, pariensis, spathula, and morphospecies JTL022 form a single DNA barcoding cluster with subclusters. Strumigenys spathula is morphologically distinct but has discordant DNA barcode data. A Chiapas specimen and a Cerro Cahuí specimen of spathula are distant by DNA barcode, about 5% sequence divergence, but look the same. The Cerro Cahui specimen clusters closer to a Nicaraguan specimen of pariensis.

References:

Bolton, B. 1999. Ant genera of the tribe Dacetonini (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). J. Nat. Hist. 33:1639-1689.

Bolton, B. 2000. The ant tribe Dacetini, with a revision of the Strumigenys species of the Malagasy Region by Brian L. Fisher, and a revision of the Austral epopostrumiform genera by Steven O. Shattuck. Memoirs of the American Entomological Institute 65:1-1028.

Brown, W. L., Jr., and E. O. Wilson 1959. The evolution of the dacetine ants. Quarterly Review of Biology 34:278-294.

Lattke, J., and W. Goitia 1997. El genero Strumigenys (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) en Venezuela. Caldasia 19:367-396.

Specimen Habitat Summary

Found most commonly in these habitats: 57 times found in mature wet forest, 31 times found in tropical wet forest, 12 times found in montane wet forest, 3 times found in tropical rainforest, with big trees, probably primary, 2 times found in lowland rainforest, 1 times found in SSO, 1 times found in LEP, 1 times found in wet forest, 1 times found in Primary wet forest, 1 times found in secondgrowth dry forest, ...

Found most commonly in these microhabitats: 106 times ex sifted leaf litter, 7 times Hojarasca, 1 times Hojarasca., 1 times Entre trampa M/01 y M/02, 1 times en hojarasca tamizada.

Collected most commonly using these methods: 88 times miniWinkler, 13 times maxiWinkler, 7 times Winkler, 5 times Mini Winkler, 1 times Berlese, 1 times Maxi Winkler.

Elevations: collected from 50 - 1192 meters, 420 meters average

Type specimens: paratype of Strumigenys pariensis: casent0900446

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