Prof John Longino, an entomologist with the University of Utah, has described 33 new species of predatory ants in Central America and the Caribbean, and named about a third of them after ancient Mayan lords.
This photo shows the magnified monster-like face of the ant Eurhopalothrix zipacna, named after Zipacna, a vicious, crocodile-like demon of Mayan mythology (© John T. Longino / University of Utah).
In a study published in the journal Zootaxa, the scientist described 14 new species of the ant genus Eurhopalothrix. The generic name refers to the club-shaped hairs on many Eurhopalothrix species.
In another study accepted for publication in the same journal, Prof Longino identified 19 new species in the genus Octostruma. The genus name means ‘eight swellings’ for the ants’ eight-segmented antennas.
“The new species were found mostly in small patches of forest that remain in a largely agricultural landscape, highlighting the importance of forest conservation efforts in Central America,” Prof Longino said.
The new ant species are less than one-twelfth to one-twenty-fifth of an inch long – much smaller than a rice grain or common half-inch-long household ants – and live in the rotting wood and dead leaves that litter the forest floors in Central America.
They are nearly eyeless and crawl around in leaf litter, using primitive compound eyes to detect light but not form images. No one knows how they find their prey, presumed to be soft-bodied insects, spiders, millipedes and centipedes. But the ants are known to coat themselves with a thin layer of clay, believed to serve as camouflage.
The face of ant species Eurhopalothrix semicapillum, named for the hairy patches on its face (© John T. Longino / University of Utah).
Among the newly discovered and named species from forest-floor leaf litter:
– Eurhopalothrix zipacna, named for a violent, crocodile-like Mayan demon and found in Guatemala and Honduras.
– Eurhopalothrix xibalba, or a ‘place of fear,’ for the underworld ruled by death gods in certain Mayan mythology. It lives from Honduras to Costa Rica.
– Eurhopalothrix hunhau, for a major Mayan death god and a lord of the underworld. This species lives in Mexico and Guatemala.
Some of the scary looking new species have more mundane names, such as Eurhopalothrix semicapillum, named for partial patches of hair on its face, and Octostruma convallis, named after the curved groove across its face.
Prof Longino named one species Eurhopalothrix ortizae, after Patricia Ortiz, a Costa Rican naturalist who died in a rock-fall accident this year.
Note the sideways-moving jaws on the face of this queen of the ant species Octostruma convallis (© John T. Longino / University of Utah).
“So far, there are about 15,000 known species of ants worldwide, based largely on difference in body structure, and perhaps as many as 30,000. But as geneticists analyze more and more ants, new genetic differences are becoming apparent, and so there could be 100,000 ant species,” Prof Longino said
The 33 new species bring the number of ant species Prof Longino has discovered during his career to 131.
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Bibliographic information: John Longino. 2013. A review of the Central American and Caribbean species of the ant genus Eurhopalothrix Brown and Kempf, 1961 (Hymenoptera, Formicidae), with a key to New World species. Zootaxa 3693 (2): 101–151
