''Belonopelta'' is a
Neotropical
The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone.
Definition
In bioge ...
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
of
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 ...
s in the
subfamily Ponerinae
Ponerinae is a subfamily of ants in the Poneromorph subfamilies group, with about 1,600 species in 47 extant genera, including '' Dinoponera gigantea'' - one of the world's largest species of ant. Mated workers have replaced the queen as the ...
.
The genus contains two species: ''B. deletrix'' is known from
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica ...
and
Colombia, while ''B. attenuata'' is only known from Colombia.
Members of this genus are rarely collected, and little is known about their habits. Males remain unknown for both species, and queens and larvae have only been described for ''B. deletrix''.
Species
* ''
Belonopelta attenuata''
Mayr, 1870
* ''
Belonopelta deletrix''
Mann, 1922
References
Ponerinae
Ant genera
Hymenoptera of North America
Hymenoptera of South America
{{Ponerinae-stub