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// Distribution

Distribution:

  Geographic regions (According to curated Geolocale/Taxon lists):
    Americas: Costa Rica
  Biogeographic regions (According to curated Bioregion/Taxon lists):
    Neotropical

Distribution Notes:

Costa Rica: widespread in wet to moist forest habitats, sea level to 1200m, not in cloud forest or dry forest.

Biology:

Natural History:

This species prefers moist to wet forest habitats. It is arboreal, nesting in various cavities from just above ground level to the canopy. At La Selva Biological Station, workers are relatively frequent in canopy fogging and Malaise samples, but rare in Winkler samples.

I have found nests in hollow dead sticks in low vegetation, in internodes of Cecropia saplings, under epiphytes, and layered between Heliconia leaves. When I found a nest between Heliconia leaves, the leaves appeared to have fallen together horizontally by accident. The ants had built a thin nest of messy carton between the leaves. I often finds nests in close proximity to other ant species: I have found them near a Crematogaster longispina nest, in the same stick with a C. carinata nest, and in leaf bases of an Aechmea tillandsiodes var. kienastii plant on a not too active Azteca ant-garden. Many branch tips near this ant garden had small shelters covering Paratrechina workers and one or two large, globose coccids.

Workers are common on extrafloral nectaries, and I have found them tending Membracidae.

Specimen Habitat Summary

Found most commonly in these habitats: 25 times found in rainforest, 19 times found in montane wet forest, 3 times found in CES 400, 6 times found in wet forest, 10 times found in mature wet forest, 7 times found in lowland rainforest, 2 times found in CCL 400, 3 times found in Sura 700m, 4 times found in CCL 840M, 3 times found in cloud forest, ...

Found most commonly in these microhabitats: 15 times Malaise trap, 14 times ex sifted leaf litter, 6 times STR, 4 times copa de árbol, 1 times canopy fogging sample, 5 times Sobre Vegetacion, 4 times Alrrededor de M/12, 3 times bajo de M/29, 3 times on low vegetation, 1 times on extrafloral nectaries, 1 times nest in debris between Heliconia leaves, ...

Collected most commonly using these methods: 48 times fogging, 37 times Malaise, 12 times Berlese, 8 times search, 10 times flight intercept trap, 8 times miniWinkler, 5 times Sweeping, 3 times Winkler, 1 times Mini Winkler, 1 times beating low vegetation, 1 times beating vegetation (1 hour), ...

Elevations: collected from 5 - 1800 meters, 176 meters average

Collect Date Range: collected between 1980-01-05 and 2016-05-30

Type specimens:

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