''Gigantiops'' is a South American

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 jumping

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

Formicinae The Formicinae are a subfamily within the Formicidae containing ants of moderate evolutionary development. Formicines retain some primitive features, such as the presence of cocoons around pupae, the presence of ocelli in workers, and little ...

. The genus contains the single species ''Gigantiops destructor'', which is also the sole member of the

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...

Gigantiopini. They have the largest eyes among all ants, are known for their ability to jump, and have the highest number of chromosomes of any member of the subfamily Formicinae (2n=78).

Distribution and habitat

The genus is known from the

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

region in South America, where they nest in soil, rotten wood or cavities excavated by other animals (beetle galleries or nests of the bullet ant, ''

Paraponera clavata ''Paraponera clavata'' is a species of ant, commonly known as the bullet ant, named for its extremely painful sting. It inhabits humid lowland rainforests in Central and South America. Etymology The specific epithet of the ant, ', means "club- ...

''). They are distributed from about 10 degrees north to 15 degrees south of the equator.

Feeding habits

During the day, workers forage solitarily on the ground and in tree branches. They feed on extrafloral nectar and small

arthropod Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and cuticle made of chiti ...

s, sometimes even eating the prey on site. Larvae are fed with chewed prey. Individual workers do not cooperate while foraging; they do not recruit nestmates, and may even fight nestmates for prey. Gigantiops destructor

References

External links

* Formicinae Monotypic ant genera Hymenoptera of South America {{formicinae-stub