''Tetraponera tessmanni'' is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

ant Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period. More than 13,800 of an estimated total of ...

in the subfamily

Pseudomyrmecinae Pseudomyrmecinae is a small subfamily of ants containing only three genera of slender, large-eyed arboreal ants, predominantly tropical or subtropical in distribution. In the course of adapting to arboreal conditions (unlike the predominantly ...

, which is native to tropical

Central Africa Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo ...

, where it inhabits the hollow stems of the liana ''

Vitex thyrsiflora ''Vitex thyrsiflora'' is a species of woody vine in the family Lamiaceae. It is native to tropical West and Central Africa. Its hollow stem is used as a home by an aggressive species of ant. Description Although many species of ''Vitex'' are ta ...

''.

Ecology

''T. tessmanni'' has a symbiotic relationship with ''

'', a liana of the tropical rain forests of West and Central Africa, which has hollow cavities in which the ant makes its nest. With most species of ant that live in association with trees, the ants prune the foliage of adjoining trees to prevent other ecologically dominant arboreal ants from invading their territory. That is not the case with ''T. tessmanni'', because the very nature of a liana means it is constant contact with other vegetation. Instead, the ant has developed certain traits that enable it to maintain dominance and ''V. thyrsiflora'' can be considered a specialized

myrmecophyte Myrmecophytes (; literally "ant-plant") are plants that live in a mutualistic association with a colony of ants. There are over 100 different genera of myrmecophytes. These plants possess structural adaptations that provide ants with food and ...

, because all mature specimens are found to be colonised by the ant. Shoots of ''V. thyrsiflora'' consists of a series of nodes, and the ants create entrance holes at the node junctions, and link the nodes internally by chewing holes between them to form their

domatia A domatium (plural: domatia, from the Latin "domus", meaning home) is a tiny chamber that houses arthropods, produced by a plant. Ideally domatia differ from galls in that they are produced by the plant rather than being induced by their inhabi ...

(specialised chambers adapted for habitation by ants). The nodes initially contain pith but this dries up in older shoots. Other insects are associated with plants and may try to colonise the nodes of ''V. thyrsiflora'', but ''T. tessmanni'' is the only ant to create entrance holes (although this is also done by the beetle '' Ischnolanguria concolor''). ''T. tessmanni'' is a very aggressive ant and seems capable of establishing its dominance over the liana, which may be or so long. The ant colony may occupy the whole liana as it grows and have multiple queens. The ants patrol the liana and drive away herbivorous insects, but they do not feed on honeydew or nectar, nor do they leave their host liana to obtain food elsewhere, but they seem to extract all their nourishment from the interior of the nodes which they rasp to create wound callus. The ant larvae have their heads orientated ventrally, fleshy appendages on the thoracic and first abdominal segments, and hooked hairs on their dorsal surfaces, by which they are hung from the roof of the domatia. These appendages seem to act as a sort of gland known as an "exudia", with the larvae being fed by mouth and producing a fatty exudate from the gland which is licked off by the workers.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3911896 Pseudomyrmecinae Hymenoptera of Africa Insects described in 1910