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Taxonomic History (provided by Barry Bolton, 2023)

// Distribution

Distribution:

  Geographic regions (According to curated Geolocale/Taxon lists):
    Americas: Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela
  Biogeographic regions (According to curated Bioregion/Taxon lists):
    Neotropical

Distribution Notes:

Mexico south to Colombia, Venezuela, Trinidad, Puerto Rico.

Biology:

This species occurs in various habitats, including highly disturbed areas (city parks), seasonal dry forest, mature lowland rainforest, and second growth rainforest. It can occur on the ground or in the canopy. Workers readily recruit to baits, and major workers often recruit along with minor workers. Nests are in small cavities and appear to be somewhat opportunistically inhabited.

Comments:

Although Wilson (2003) illustrated a "Lectotype major worker," no lectotype label was found among the type material of P. susannae at MHNG.

The syntypes of P. susannae and P. obscurior are very similar in all respects but color. The syntypes of P. susannae are yellow; those of P. obscurior are dark brown. The key in Wilson separates the species on relative scape length in the major, with P. obscurior purported to have relatively longer scapes. However, measurements of the types reveal that the lectotype of P. obscurior has a SI that is actually lower than that of syntypes of P. susannae.

Pheidole susannae is a relatively common species found in disturbed habitats throughout the Neotropics. It appears quite uniform in morphology across its range. Most specimens are dark red brown. The types from Guatemala and a few collections from El Salvador and Nicaragua are yellow.

J. Longino, Jan 2020: Casadei-Ferreira et al., 2020 resurrect P. obscurior, which had been synonymized under P. susannae. They say that the two species differ in pronotal pilosity of the major, but that sites of sympatry are unknown. Pheidole susannae is a widespread, somewhat weedy species, with variable pronotal pilosity in majors. I have not been able to see the difference they describe.

Taxonomic Treatment (provided by Plazi)

Specimen Habitat Summary

Found most commonly in these habitats: 55 times found in tropical rainforest, 22 times found in lowland wet forest, 21 times found in 2º lowland rainforest, 15 times found in 2º wet forest, 10 times found in tropical wet forest, 14 times found in tropical moist forest, 6 times found in tropical dry forest, 6 times found in mature rainforest, 5 times found in rainforest, 5 times found in old cacao plantation, ...

Found most commonly in these microhabitats: 130 times at bait, 43 times ex sifted leaf litter, 6 times beating vegetation, 1 times nest in dead wood, 1 times nest in clay bank, 3 times at bait on ground, 1 times on trail, 1 times ground nest, 3 times foragers, 2 times at baits, 1 times pest ant in lab, ...

Collected most commonly using these methods: 115 times Baiting, 26 times search, 23 times MiniWinkler, 17 times bait, 11 times Winkler, 12 times MaxiWinkler, 6 times Fogging, 6 times Beating, 2 times Berlese, 1 times Winkler48h, 1 times direct collection, ...

Elevations: collected from 5 - 1480 meters, 294 meters average

Collect Date Range: collected between 1924-01-01 00:00:00.0 and 2021-12-30 00:00:00.0

Type specimens: Lectotype of Pheidole partita: casent0916067; Lectotype of Pheidole susannae obscurior: jtlc000015316; Not Provided: casent0282692, casent0282693, casent0283485; paralectotype of Pheidole partita: casent0919784; paralectotype of Pheidole susannae obscurior: jtlc000015317; syntype of Pheidole susannae: casent0917788, jtlc000015334, jtlc000015335; syntype of Pheidole susannae atricolor: casent0901591, casent0901592, casent0916621, casent0916622, casent0917789, casent0917790; syntype of Pheidole incisa evoluta: casent0913456, casent0913457; syntype of Pheidole susannae atricolor: jtlc000015332, jtlc000015333; type of Pheidole susannae: focol0620; type of Pheidole susannae atricolor: focol0241-1, focol0241-2, focol0241-3, focol0241-4; Type of unavailable quadrinomial: Pheidole susannae atricolor fortunata: casent0908122, casent0908123

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