Arizona inverts

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Gordon C. Snelling

Arizona inverts

Post by Gordon C. Snelling »

I posted my herps from my August run but never got around to posting my inverts. so here are a few of them.

Chrysina lecontei
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Alate Dorymyrex queen
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Arizona stag beetle
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Vinegaroon
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Daniel D Dye
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Joined: June 7th, 2010, 4:56 pm
Location: New River (Brooker), Florida
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Re: Arizona inverts

Post by Daniel D Dye »

Gordon,

How did you ID that alate as a Dorymyrmex? Did it retain the pyramid on the thorax?
IDing alate ants are difficult to say the least...outside of counting antennae segments and nodes.

I'm hoping to learn something here. :)

Thanks,
Daniel
Gordon C. Snelling

Re: Arizona inverts

Post by Gordon C. Snelling »

Daniel
It comes down to process of elimination really, and counting nodes and antennal segments. It helps to know what is in the area to begin with and in this case a couple of groups could be eliminated immediately. Gone were the army ants, queens do not ever fly, also all myrmicine genera were gone as they have a two noded petiole. Ponerines gone, only one genus near this size in the area, Odontomachus which it clearly wasn't So that brings us to Dolichoderines and Formicines, They both have single node petioles. So could have been a toss up. however the shape of gaster in the two groups is quite different. Formicines have a more pointed gaster than the dolichoderines, this one is more evenly rounded and has a slit like opening where the formicines have a rounded acidopore surrounded by short hairs. So dolichoderine. This alate was too large to be Forelius as well as the wrong color, additionally way too cool for Forelius to be active and they dont fly at night. Tapinoma too large and wrong color. Too small to be Liometopum, pretty much leaves Dorymyrmex which would be the right size and color for it to be Dorymyrmex bicolor. No the propodeal feature does not really carry thru in the queens so would not be a usefull thing to use on this ant but queens and workers are often similar enough that worker keys do work for queens. I hope this helps
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Warren
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Joined: June 9th, 2010, 7:17 am

Re: Arizona inverts

Post by Warren »

well duh! thought i was actually gonna learn something! lol
Gordon C. Snelling

Re: Arizona inverts

Post by Gordon C. Snelling »

Sorry bout that Warren. This really is the way it often works when trying to figure out some of these things. If there were more species of Dorymyrmex in Az then it would be more problematic and there would have been some definite scope time involved in figuring them out. however there are currently only two recognized species, one is red the other black.
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