Soil and leaf litter ants from the Amazon Region offer new distribution records for Colombia

By

Arredondo, Brandon S.
Carreño-Guevara, Yennifer
Gutierrez-Villanueva, Yenifer
Duran-Bautista, Ervin
Gamboa-Tabares, Jean
Guerrero, Roberto J.

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2025-5-5

Original Publication

Biodiversity data journal

Volume

13

Pages

1--91

Subjects

Caquetá Department , Distributional range , diversity , Formicidae , Morphology

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia Pensoft Publishers [2013]-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.13.e142813

 

Abstract

The Colombian Amazon is a region of remarkable biodiversity; however, several biological groups and their microhabitats remain poorly explored. Recent studies on soil ant diversity have provided new records and insights into their biology. Sampling techniques focused on exploring the soil interior (monoliths) and leaf litter have led to numerous new ant records for Colombia, as well as range expansions for many species previously known from other regions.<br> Seven new species records are reported for the country and the distribution of 14 species is extended within the Department of Caquetá. These 21 records belong to five subfamilies and sixteen genera. For the first time, the genera Lenomyrmex (Fernández &amp; Palacio), Myrmelachista (Roger), Oxyepoecus (Santschi) and Stegomyrmex (Emery) are recorded for the Colombian Amazon. Additionally, the first case of an ergatoid queen in Probolomyrmex kelleri (Oliveira &amp; Feitosa) is documented. The northernmost records of Adelomyrmex striatus (Fernández) and Centromyrmex gigas (Forel) are also reported. Morphological observations, distribution data and images of all recorded species are included. The specimens were collected using the Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility (TSBF) and Winkler extraction methodologies. Furthermore, we present a checklist of ants from Caquetá, listing 321 species for the Department. Finally, we update the known ant diversity of Colombia, reporting a total of 1.280 species and 110 genera.