Neha Patil (Editor)

Pseudomyrmex spinicola

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Kingdom
  
Order
  
Subfamily
  
Pseudomyrmecinae

Scientific name
  
Pseudomyrmex spinicola

Rank
  
Species

Phylum
  
Family
  
Formicidae

Genus
  
Pseudomyrmex

Higher classification
  
Pseudomyrmex

Pseudomyrmex spinicola httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommons88

Similar
  
Pseudomyrmex, Ant, Insect, Vachellia collinsii, Pseudomyrmex ferruginea

Pseudomyrmex spinicola on vachellia acacia collinsii


Pseudomyrmex spinicola is a species of red myrmecophyte-inhabiting neotropical ants which are found only in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. They live in the thorns of a tropical trees like Acacia collinsii or Acacia allenii, feeding on nectaries along with the protein and lipid-rich beltian bodies. These bodies are named for Thomas Belt, a naturalist who first described the interactions between acacias and ants in his 1874 book Naturalist in Nicaragua. Belt's book in fact described ants of this species, then unknown.

Contents

P. spinicola are the more aggressive among a number of A. collinsii-inhabiting species that engage in a classic case of mutualism. The ants receive colony space in A. collinsii to support their population structure. In return, the ants actively defend the tree from herbivory and often from competing plants nearby, clearing the forest floor of other seedlings. Sometimes, a large P. spinicola colony may be spread between two or more trees, protecting each tree within their colony and possibly grooming A. collinsii seedlings within that microhabitat to be used by the colony.

Populations of mutualistic myrmecophyte-inhabiting ants may be space limited, and therefore P. spinicola use the largest-volume thorns for the queen's chamber and other large-volume thorns for egg nurseries. The smallest eggs will be found in the queen's chamber, before being redistributed to other larger thorns to be nursed through early life stages.

Pseudomyrmex spinicola area de conservacion de guanacaste costa rica junquillal


References

Pseudomyrmex spinicola Wikipedia


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