Ancient ants

Ancient ants
Harpegnathos saltator
Systematics
Class : Insects (Insecta) Order : Hymenoptera (Hymenoptera) Subordination : Waist Wasps (Apocrita) Family : Ants (Formicidae) Subfamily : Ancient ants
Scientific name
Ponerinae
Lepeletier , 1835

The ponerinae (Ponerinae), also puncturing ants or wasps ants are a subfamily of ants (Formicidae).

features

The primeval ants have a knot-shaped or scale-shaped stalk member ( petiolus ) without a postpetiolus. Between the first and second segment of Gaster is a marked constriction. In some genera such as Odontomachus this constriction is missing, but these are then easy to determine by the extreme modification of the gaster or the mandibles . All female castes have a poison sting .

Queens and workers are morphologically very similar and show no extreme differences in size. Ergatomorphic or intermorphic adults are common. In most species, the queens lay very little eggs and often lay no more than five eggs per day. Accordingly, weak colonies, which often only consist of several hundred animals, are the rule. Real trophallaxis , the exchange of goiter food, only takes place in the closely related genera Ponera and Hypoponera . In other species, the fluid exchange occurs when workers transport a drop between the mandibles. The larvae always develop into cocoon pupae .

Occurrence

The ancient ants are found all over the world, especially in warm areas. In Central Europe , only two species originally exist, namely the narrow primeval ant ( Ponera coarctata ) and a very similar species, the brown primeval ant ( Ponera testacea ). In addition, there are some introduced species, which can usually only be found in places that are warm all year round, such as in greenhouses (e.g. Hypoponera punctatissima ).

Way of life

The social behaviors are not as well developed as those of the scale ants . Many species establish their colonies independently, but semi- claustrally , that is, the queen has to leave the nest to collect food. With a few exceptions, female workers collect food alone and recruitment behavior is weak.

nutrition

Most of the ancient ants' diet consists predominantly or exclusively of captured insects, spiders and other small animals. Many species specialize in a certain type of prey (e.g. millipedes ). In addition, is carrion accepted. Symbioses with caterpillars , aphids or other insects are not described in the case of the ancient ants.

Systematics

After a revision of the higher ant taxa by the American myrmecologist Barry Bolton in 2003, the group of Ponerinae is now much narrower than according to the traditional view. Many tribes were raised to the rank of subfamilies (Amblyoponinae, Ectatomminae, Heteroponerinae, Proceratiinae). The genus Paraponera with the only recent representative Paraponera clavata and the fossil species Paraponera dieteri was previously also included in this group, but according to current knowledge is not closely related to the ancient ants and forms its own subfamily Paraponerinae.

The slightly more than a thousand species of the ancient ants are subdivided into the following tribes and genera:

• Platythyreini
  • Platythyrea
• Ponerini
  • Anochetus
  • Asphinctopone
  • Belonopelta
  • Centromyrmex
  • Cryptopone
  • Diacamma
  • Dinoponera (e.g. Dinoponera longipes )
  • Dolioponera
  • Emeryopone
  • Harpegnathos
  • Hypoponera
  • Leptogenys
  • Loboponera
  • Myopias
  • Odontomachus
  • Odontoponera
  • Pachycondyla
  • Phrynoponera
  • Plectroctena
  • Ponera (e.g. Ponera testacea , Ponera coarctata )
  • Psalidomyrmex
  • Simopelta
  • Streblognathus
• Thaumatomyrmecini
  • Thaumatomyrmex

According to current general opinion, the phylogenetic relationships within the Ponerinae follow the following cladogram :

Ponerinae	NN    Thaumatomyrmex      Ponerini      Platythyrea

The Ponerini are probably not a monophyletic group. The classification of Thaumatomyrmex is considered uncertain.

swell

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bernhard Seifert : The ants of Central and Northern Europe . lutra publishing and sales company, Görlitz / Tauer 2007. ISBN 978-3-936412-03-1 .
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Wilson , Hölldobler : The rise of the ants: A phylogenetic and ecological explanation . In: PNAS . Volume 102, May 2005, pp. 7411-7414.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Heiko Bellmann : bees, wasps, ants. Hymenoptera of Central Europe . Franckh-Kosmos, Stuttgart 1995. ISBN 3-440-09690-4 .
4. ↑ S. Csösz, B. Seifert: Ponera Testaceae Emery, 1895 Stat. N. - A sister species of P. coarctata (Latreille, 1802). (PDF; 193 kB) Accessed June 4, 2008 . 
5. ↑ B. Bolton : Synopsis and classification of Formicidae. In: Memoirs of the American Entomological Institute , Volume 71, 2003, p. 370 ff.
6. ↑ Ponerinae Taxon Count. (No longer available online.) Hymenoptera Name Server, formerly the original ; Retrieved May 28, 2008 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
7. ↑ ^{a b} Ponerinae. Tree Of Life web project, accessed May 27, 2008 . 

literature

• Bert Hölldobler , Edward O. Wilson : Ants. The discovery of a fascinating world. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel - Boston - Berlin 1995. ISBN 3-7643-5152-7 .

Web links

Commons : Ur ants  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ponerinae. In: AntWiki. Retrieved July 20, 2013 .