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Taxonomic History (provided by Barry Bolton, 2021)

Taxon Page Images:

Eurhopalothrix procera - a worker ant delicately handles a freshly-laid egg. Cape Tribulation, Queensland, Australia.
Image © Alex Wild.

Overview:

The genus Eurhopalothrix occurs in the Neotropics and in the Indo-Australian-southwestern Pacific area (Brown and Kempf 1960, Longino 2013). They are members of the "cryptobiotic" fauna: small, slow ants that live in rotten wood and leaf litter. They are predators, preying on small, soft-bodied arthropods (Wilson 1956, Brown and Kempf 1960, Wilson and Brown 1985).

Workers and nests are extremely difficult to see in the field, because the workers are camouflaged and very slow moving. On disturbance they freeze, often curling into a pupal position, and remain motionless for several minutes (Wilson and Brown 1985, Hoelldobler and Wilson 1986). As a result of their cryptic nature, they were considered extremely rare until the 1960's. But increasing use of Winkler and Berlese sampling has shown Eurhopalothrix to be relatively common. // Distribution

Distribution:

  Geographic regions (According to curated Geolocale/Taxon lists):
    Africa: Comoros
    Americas: Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, United States, Venezuela
    Asia: Borneo, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore
    Oceania: Australia, Fiji, Micronesia, New Caledonia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu
  Biogeographic regions (According to curated Bioregion/Taxon lists):
    Australasia, Indomalaya, Malagasy, Nearctic, Neotropical, Oceania
  Native biogeographic regions (according to species list records):
    Australasia, Indomalaya, Malagasy, Nearctic, Neotropical, Oceania

Taxonomic Treatment (provided by Plazi)

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