''Procryptocerus'' 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 gliding ants, with the ability to "parachute" by steering their fall if they drop off of the tree they're on.

Distribution

''Procryptocerus'' inhabits rainforests from the

Isthmus of Tehuantepec The Isthmus of Tehuantepec () is an isthmus in Mexico. It represents the shortest distance between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Before the opening of the Panama Canal, it was a major overland transport route known simply as the T ...

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 ...

to northern

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. Due to their cryptic habits, living inside twigs, these ants are rarely collected. At present, most species are known from

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

, Colombia and

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

Taxonomy

The genus was created by Emery (1887) to include species of

ants that were considered similar to those of the

Paleotropical The Paleotropical Kingdom (Paleotropis) is a floristic kingdom comprising tropical areas of Africa, Asia and Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand), as proposed by Ronald Good and Armen Takhtajan. Part of its flora, inherited from the ancient ...

genus '' Cataulacus''. ''Procryptocerus'' has been the object of two revisionary studies. Kempf (1951) revised the entire genus and Longino and Snelling (2002) the Central American species. Kempf (1951) recognized 28 species, and 8 subspecies, while for Central America Longino and Snelling (2002) recognized 14 species, described four new species, synonymized two species, and elevated two subspecies to species level. Currently, 45 species are included in the genus.

Description

The genus is characterized by the protrusion of the clypeus forming a broad nasus and antennal scrobes over the eyes. The toruli are located right posterior to the flanks of the nasus opposite to each other. The vertex is deflexed posteriorly in most species. ''Procryptocerus'' ants possess notoriously variable morphology. Different characters, such as propodeal spine length, form of the clypeus, type of sculpture, and other such characters vary remarkably, sometimes even within the same species. Knowledge of morphology and anatomy is incomplete for all species. Adult workers are mostly black in color, body variously sculptured and monomorphic, ranging from 3.5 to 8.5 mm. Although similar to workers, gyne are larger (3.7–9.5 mm) with thoracic

sclerites A sclerite ( Greek , ', meaning " hard") is a hardened body part. In various branches of biology the term is applied to various structures, but not as a rule to vertebrate anatomical features such as bones and teeth. Instead it refers most commonl ...

corresponding to

alate Alate (Latin ''ālātus'', from ''āla'' (“wing”)) is an adjective and noun used in entomology and botany to refer to something that has wings or winglike structures. In entomology In entomology, "alate" usually refers to the winged form o ...

s in other apocritans. Males are longer and more slender than gynes, ranging from 4.8 mm to 9.9 mm in length.

Species

References

* * *Longino JT, Snelling RR. (2002) "A Taxonomic revision of the ''Procryptocerus'' (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of Central America." ''Contributions in Science'', Number 495. Natural History Museum, Los Angeles. * *

External links

* {{Authority control Myrmicinae Ant genera Hymenoptera of North America Hymenoptera of South America