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Genus: Eurhopalothrix   Brown & Kempf, 1961 

Classification:

Current Valid Name:



Taxonomic History (provided by Barry Bolton, 2023)

Extant: 55 valid species

Eurhopalothrix Brown & Kempf, 1961 PDF: 44. Type-species: Rhopalothrix bolaui, by original designation. AntCat AntWiki

Taxonomic history

[Eurhopalothrix Brown & Kempf, 1960 PDF: 202; unavailable name, proposed without designation of type-species.]
Eurhopalothrix in Myrmicinae, Basicerotini: Brown & Kempf, 1961 PDF: 44; all subsequent authors except the entries below; Bolton, 1998a: 67; Bolton, 2003 PDF: 184.
Genus Eurhopalothrix references
Brown & Kempf, 1960 PDF: 202, 245 (diagnosis, all species revision, key); Snelling, 1968c PDF: 3 (supplement to Brown & Kempf, 1960 key); Taylor, 1968c PDF: 334 (Indo-Australian species key); Taylor, 1970a PDF: 51 (supplement to Taylor, 1968b key); Kempf, 1972b PDF: 107 (Neotropical catalogue); Smith, 1979: 1409 (North America catalogue); Taylor & Brown, 1985: 64 (Australia catalogue); Taylor, 1987a PDF: 26 (Australia, New Caledonia checklist); Taylor, 1990c PDF: 401 (Old World species key); Brandão, 1991 PDF: 343 (Neotropical catalogue); Bolton, 1995a PDF: 1049 (census); Bolton, 1995b: 189 (catalogue); Shattuck, 1999: 135 (Australia synopsis); Ketterl et al., 2004 PDF: 48 (Neotropical species key); Mezger & Pfeiffer, 2010 PDF: 135 (Eurhopalothrix platisquama group key); Longino, 2013a PDF: 106, 107 (New World species synopsis, key); Cantone, 2017 PDF: 201 (brief male diagnosis); Fernández & Serna, 2019 PDF: 853 (Colombia species key); Fiorentino et al., 2022 10.25100/socolen.v48i1.11484 PDF: 2 (key to Colombian species (workers)); Chaul, 2022 10.11646/zootaxa.5182.1.1 PDF: 5 (list of South American species), 6 (southern South American species key).

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, Uruguay, 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)

Scientific Name Status Publication Pages ModsID GoogleMaps
Eurhopalothrix   Wild, A. L., 2007, A catalogue of the ants of Paraguay (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)., Zootaxa 1622, pp. 1-55: 33, (download) 33 21367
Eurhopalothrix   Wild, A. L., 2007, A catalogue of the ants of Paraguay (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)., Zootaxa 1622, pp. 1-55: 33, (download) 33 21367
Eurhopalothrix   Wild, A. L., 2007, A catalogue of the ants of Paraguay (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)., Zootaxa 1622, pp. 1-55: 33, (download) 33 21367
Eurhopalothrix   Wild, A. L., 2007, A catalogue of the ants of Paraguay (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)., Zootaxa 1622, pp. 1-55: 33, (download) 33 21367


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