''Pseudomyrmex gracilis'', also known as the graceful twig ant, Mexican twig ant, slender twig ant, or elongated twig ant, is a large, slender species native to
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 ...
and arid parts of the
US. The workers are about in length and generally
wasp-like in appearance and style of movement. Worker ants are bi-colored; the head and
gaster are dark, while the
antennae,
mouthparts,
thorax
The thorax or chest is a part of the anatomy of humans, mammals, and other tetrapod animals located between the neck and the abdomen. In insects, crustaceans, and the extinct trilobites, the thorax is one of the three main divisions of the cre ...
and legs are dull orange with dark shading. They often may be seen on
vegetation
Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic characte ...
, foraging for live insects or collecting
honeydew from
sap-sucking insects.
If the colony ever finds themselves without a queen, the worker ants form dominance hierarchies by boxing with their antennae. This leads to a couple high ranking individuals to lay eggs until a new queen returns.
Photos
File:Pseudomyrmex gracilis colony chamber - Mount Dora, Florida, USA - Joseph Stansbury Rosin.jpg, Colony chamber - shows multiple life stages of P. gracilis nesting in a Sabal palmetto
''Sabal palmetto'' (, '' SAY-bəl''), also known as cabbage palm, cabbage palmetto, sabal palm, blue palmetto, Carolina palmetto, common palmetto, Garfield's tree, and swamp cabbage, is one of 15 species of palmetto palm.
It is native to the So ...
frond
References
Further reading
* Volker S. Schmid; Martin Kaltenpoth; Erhard Strohm & Jürgen Heinze (2013) "''Worker self-restraint and policing maintain the queen’s reproductive monopoly in a pseudomyrmecine ant'' pp. 1
External links
*
University of Florida
Insects described in 1804
Pseudomyrmecinae
Hymenoptera of North America
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