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Taxonomic History (provided by Barry Bolton, 2022)

// Distribution

Distribution:

  Geographic regions (According to curated Geolocale/Taxon lists):
    Americas: Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela
  Biogeographic regions (According to curated Bioregion/Taxon lists):
    Neotropical

Distribution Notes:

Mexico to Brazil and Bolivia. Costa Rica: common in Pacific lowlands, from the Osa Peninsula to Guanacaste Province; rare in the Atlantic lowlands.

Biology:

Natural History:

This species prefers open, sunny habitats, including the high canopy of rainforest, secondgrowth vegetation, and isolated trees in pastures and around dwellings. It is a relatively common species, and conspicuous due to its color pattern. I most often encounter it on treetrunks and in treefalls. In spite of its commonness, I have only seen nests once. I was collecting in a canopy Ficus, and I found many nests in live branches. The nests were in the very tips of the branches, with inside diameters 5-8mm, outside diameters 15-20mm. The nest chambers were irregular, as though excavated by the ants and not preformed by the plant. Workers were very abundant in the crown of the tree, suggesting a large, polydomous colony with nests in many branches.

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.

Fabricius, J. C. 1804. Systema Piezatorum secundum ordines, genera, species, adjectis synonymis, locis, observationibus, descriptionibus. Brunswick: C. Reichard, xiv + 15-439 + 30 pp.

Kempf, W. W. 1958. New studies of the ant tribe Cephalotini (Hym. Formicidae). Stud. Entomol. (n.s.)1:1-168.

Specimen Habitat Summary

Found most commonly in these habitats: 1 times found in wet forest, 3 times found in lowland rainforest, 3 times found in roadside vegetation, 2 times found in Rainforest, 1 times found in roadside edge, 1 times found in beach margin, 1 times found in La Selva, 1 times found in lowland primary rainforest, 1 times found in moist forest, 1 times found in premontane rainforest, ...

Found most commonly in these microhabitats: 1 times ex live stems Ficus, 3 times strays, 1 times on tree trunk, 2 times beating vegetation, 1 times On Lophopterys floribunda, 1 times Malaise trap, 1 times in fresh treefall, 1 times general collecting, 1 times fresh treefall, 1 times forest Hisbiscus flowers, 1 times foraging on tree fall, ...

Collected most commonly using these methods: 11 times search, 4 times direct collection, 2 times Beating, 1 times observation, 1 times Malaise, 1 times Manual sampling.

Elevations: collected from 5 - 1760 meters, 237 meters average

Collect Date Range: collected between 1924-06-20 00:00:00.0 and 2017-10-27 00:00:00.0

Type specimens: Holotype of Cryptocerus elegans: casent0900238; Holotype of Cryptocerus flavomaculatus: casent0919605

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