Current View: All Antweb

Cite this page

View in AntCat

Taxonomic History (provided by Barry Bolton, 2017)

Taxon Page Images:

Octostruma sp. Maquipucuna reserve, Pichincha, Ecuador.
Image © Alex Wild.

Overview:

The genus Octostruma is known only from the New World tropics, from southern Mexico and the West Indies to northern Argentina (Brown and Kempf 1960). It is a part of the "cryptobiotic" fauna: small, slow-moving ants that live in rotten wood and leaf litter. The very similar genus Eurhopalothrix is known to be predaceous on small, soft-bodied arthropods (Brown and Kempf 1960, Wilson 1956, Wilson and Brown 1985).

Workers and nests are extremely difficult to see in the field. Some species camouflage themselves with layers of soil (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 Octostruma to be relatively common. They occur in most Winkler samples from wet forest sites in the Neotropics.

Distribution:

(based on species list records)   Genus is native to: Nearctic, Neotropical bioregions.

Nearctic Region: Nuevo León, Puebla, San Luis Potosí
Neotropical Region: Alajuela, Alta Verapaz, Amazonas, Amazonas, Americas, Antioquia, Aragua, Argentina, Atlántida, Bahia, Barinas, Belize, Bocas del Toro, Bolivia, Brazil, Caribbean, Cartago, Cayo, Central America, Chiapas, Chiriquí, Chocó, Chontales, Cochabamba, Coclé, Colombia, Colón, Comayagua, Concepción, Cortés, Costa Caribe Norte, Costa Caribe Sur, Costa Rica, Cotopaxi, Cundinamarca, Curaçao, Cusco, Darién, Distrito Federal, Dominica, Ecuador, El Progreso, El Salvador, Formosa, Francisco Morazán, French Guiana, Gracias a Dios, Guadeloupe, Guanacaste, Guatemala, Guyana, Heredia, Honduras, Huehuetenango, Huánuco, Itapúa, Izabal, Jamaica, Jinotega, La Paz, Lempira, Limón, Loreto, Los Ríos, Madre de Dios, Magdalena, Manabí, Maranhão, Masaya, Matagalpa, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Meta, Mexico, Minas Gerais, Misiones, Montserrat, Napo, Nicaragua, Nueva Segovia, Oaxaca, Ocotepeque, Olancho, Orellana, Panama, Panamá, Paraguay, Paraná, Pará, Pasco, Pastaza, Peru, Petén, Pichincha, Portuguesa, Potaro-Siparuni, Puntarenas, Retalhuleu, Rio Grande do Sul, Rio de Janeiro, Risaralda, Rondônia, Saint Andrew, Saint Catherine, San José, Santa Bárbara, Santa Catarina, Santa Cruz, Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, Sipaliwini, South America, Suchitepéquez, Suriname, São Paulo, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Tocantins, Trinidad and Tobago, Trujillo, Tungurahua, Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo, Valle del Cauca, Venezuela, Veracruz, Zacapa, Zamora-Chinchipe, Zulia

Taxonomic Treatment (provided by Plazi)

See something amiss? Send us an email.

AntWeb is hosted and supported by the California Academy of Sciences.