harvester ant
Harvester ant, also known as harvesting ant, is a common name for any of the species or genera of ants that collect seeds (called seed predation), or mushrooms as in the case of '' Euprenolepis procera'', which are stored in the nest in commu ...
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
. It was first described by
Gustav Mayr
Gustav L. Mayr (12 October 1830 – 14 July 1908) was an Austrian entomologist and professor in Budapest and Vienna. He specialised in Hymenoptera, being particularly known for his studies of ants.common names have also been applied to other species.
Description
''V. pergandei'' has a head of equal length and width, with very large
mandible
In anatomy, the mandible, lower jaw or jawbone is the largest, strongest and lowest bone in the human facial skeleton. It forms the lower jaw and holds the lower teeth in place. The mandible sits beneath the maxilla. It is the only movable bone ...
s. It has short white or yellow hair and a large
thorax
The thorax or chest is a part of the anatomy of humans, mammals, and other tetrapod animals located between the neck and the abdomen. In insects, crustaceans, and the extinct trilobites, the thorax is one of the three main divisions of the cre ...
. Males typically measure about and females about . However, individual size can vary based on factors such as availability of food and interspecific competition. The species is named after American myrmecologist
Theodore Pergande
Theodore Pergande (28 December 1840 – 23 March 1916) was a German-born American entomological pioneer known for his skills in rearing insects. He made careful observations on aphids and thrips and made collections and studies on North American ...
. The genus was for some time synonymized under '' Messor'' but has been split out based on a 2015 study.
Veromessor_pergandei-mound.jpg, nest mound
Veromessor_pergandei-worker.jpg, worker
Ecology
Like other
harvester ant
Harvester ant, also known as harvesting ant, is a common name for any of the species or genera of ants that collect seeds (called seed predation), or mushrooms as in the case of '' Euprenolepis procera'', which are stored in the nest in commu ...
s, ''V. pergandei'' gathers fruits and seeds for food. The seeds of
perennial
A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wid ...
shrubs such as ''
Larrea tridentata
''Larrea tridentata'', called creosote bush and greasewood as a plant, chaparral as a medicinal herb, and ''gobernadora'' (Spanish for "governess") in Mexico, due to its ability to secure more water by inhibiting the growth of nearby plants. In S ...
'' and ''
Ambrosia dumosa
''Ambrosia dumosa'', the burro-weed or white bursage, a North American species of plants in the family Asteraceae. It is a common constituent of the creosote-bush scrub community throughout the Mojave desert of California, Nevada, and Utah and ...
AntWeb
AntWeb is the leading online database on ants: storing specimens images and records, and natural history information, and documenting over 490,000 specimens across over 35,000 taxa
In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plura ...