''Proatta'' is a

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...

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 ...

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 Myrmicinae. It contains the single species ''Proatta butteli'', known from the Malay Peninsula,

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and ea ...

and Sumatra.

Biology

Due to morphological similarities with the

fungus-growing ants Fungus-growing ants (tribe Attini) comprise all the known fungus-growing ant species participating in ant–fungus mutualism. They are known for cutting grasses and leaves, carrying them to their colonies' nests, and using them to grow fungus o ...

, Emery (1922) placed the genus within 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 ...

Attini. Weber (1958) attributed the shared similarities to

convergent evolution Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last com ...

, and Bolton (2003) finally moved the genus to Stenammini. Unlike the attines of the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

, ''Proatta'' species are predators and scavengers, and while fungus may grow in refuse piles in the nest, the ants do not actively cultivate fungus.

References

*Emery, C. (1922). "Hymenoptera. Fam. Formicidae. Subfam. Myrmicinae.

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

" ''Genera Insectorum'' 174B: 95-206. *Forel, A. (1912). "Descriptions provisoires de genres, sous-genres, et espèces de Formicides des Indes orientales." ''Revue Suisse de Zoologie'' 20: 761–774.

External links

* Myrmicinae Monotypic ant genera Hymenoptera of Asia {{myrmicinae-stub