''Technomyrmex albipes'', commonly known as the white-footed ant, is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

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 22 ...

first described in 1861 from

Sulawesi Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Ar ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

by the British entomologist Frederick Smith. Invasive pest ants in Florida, previously identified as ''T. albipes'', have now been separated as '' Technomyrmex difficilis'', both forming part of a

species complex In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...

with a worldwide distribution.

Description

''T. albipes'' is a small black ant some long with the lower part of the limbs pale. Workers are chocolate-black with pale lower limbs, antennae with twelve segments and a flattened petiolar node. It differs from ''T. difficilis'' in lacking the pair of

seta In biology, setae (singular seta ; from the Latin word for "bristle") are any of a number of different bristle- or hair-like structures on living organisms. Animal setae Protostomes Annelid setae are stiff bristles present on the body. Th ...

e (bristles) that that species has on the back of its head.

Distribution and habitat

The white-footed ant is native to the Indo-Pacific area, and has been introduced into Australia, Africa, North America, the Caribbean and parts of Asia. It inhabits dry forests and open locations. Tent-like nests are made out of debris in trees, bushes, rotten logs, under rocks, in leaf litter and similar places. It also nests in man-made structures such as wall cavities and attics.

Colony

The

colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the ''metropole, metropolit ...

structure of this ant is unusual; there are both winged and wingless males, and three types of female, queens, intercastes and workers. New colonies are founded when winged males copulate with winged females after a

nuptial flight Nuptial flight is an important phase in the reproduction of most ant, termite, and some bee species. It is also observed in some fly species, such as ''Rhamphomyia longicauda''. During the flight, virgin queens mate with males and then land to ...

. These females then shed their wings, find a suitable nesting site and start laying eggs, but their function in the colony is later taken over by intercastes. These females differ from workers in having

spermatheca The spermatheca (pronounced plural: spermathecae ), also called receptaculum seminis (plural: receptacula seminis), is an organ of the female reproductive tract in insects, e.g. ants, bees, some molluscs, oligochaeta worms and certain other ...

e (sperm storage organs) and are mated by wingless males inside the colony. They are responsible for most of the reproduction that takes place in the colony. The queen is larger than other members of the colony and lays both fertilised and unfertilised eggs throughout her life, but the colony continues in existence after she dies. So successful is this reproductive strategy that colonies grow to very large sizes, sometimes containing millions of individuals, and may occupy multiple nest sites.

Ecology

The white-footed ant forages widely, entering dwellings and scavenging in kitchens and other rooms where it is considered a pest. It is largely arboreal and feeds on the honeydew of sap-sucking insects such as

aphid Aphids are small sap-sucking insects and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea. Common names include greenfly and blackfly, although individuals within a species can vary widely in color. The group includes the fluffy white woolly aphids. A t ...

mealybug Mealybugs are insects in the family (biology), family Pseudococcidae, unarmored scale insects found in moist, warm habitats. Many species are considered pest (animal), pests as they feed on plant juices of greenhouse plants, house plants and sub ...

s, and

scale insect Scale insects are small insects of the order Hemiptera, suborder Sternorrhyncha. Of dramatically variable appearance and extreme sexual dimorphism, they comprise the infraorder Coccomorpha which is considered a more convenient grouping than the ...

s. For this purpose it protects the insects and drives off predators, thereby encouraging the insects which may be agricultural pest species; the mealybug ''

Dysmicoccus brevipes ''Dysmicoccus brevipes'' is a mealybug. The scientific name was published for the first time by Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell in 1893. The species is found primarily on pineapple and other species in the genus ''Ananas'', but also infests citru ...

'' for example transmits

pineapple wilt disease The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centuri ...

in Sri Lanka, and biological control of the mealybug has proved difficult because of the activities of the ant. Similarly in South Africa, the ant has encouraged outbreaks of the red scale insect (''Aonidiella aurantii''), a major pest of citrus in the country.Bedford, E. C. G., 1998. "Red scale ''Aonidiella auranii'' (Maskell)". In: E. C. G. Bedford, M.A. Van den Berg and E. A. De Villiers (eds.), ''Citrus pests in the Republic of South Africa''. Dynamic Ad., Nelspruit, South Africa: 132–134

References

External links

*
White-footed ant
on the UF / IFAS Featured Creatures Web site
Efficacy of selected insecticides using arboreal bioassays and rubidium marking of white-footed ants, ''Technomyrmex albipes'' (Hymenoptera Formicidae)
{{Taxonbar, from=Q3914491 Dolichoderinae Household pest insects Insects described in 1861 Taxa named by Frederick Smith (entomologist)