ant - Amblyopone pallipes

Genus Amblyopone - foundress queen

The shape of the petiolus (broadly fused with the gaster, with no distinct posterior face) is typical of the tribe Amblyoponini (subfamily Ponerinae). This leaves only two nearctic genera. Of them, Prionopelta is much more stoutly built than this individual, which therefore belongs to Amblyopone, an almost worldly widespread genus (except in Europe, sigh).
The presence of a mesoscutellum, and of distinct ocelli, clearly indicate a dealated female. That this genus exists as far North as Massachussetts is quite new for me.

… Richard Vernier, 23 April, 2005 - 12:19pm

foundress queen

Thanks for all the info Richard. Finding unusual species like this make it fun looking under rocks, on tree trunks etc. And maybe some of the pictures and locations can be helpful in understanding distributions.

… tom murray, 23 April, 2005 - 1:43pm

Primitive ant.

Cool! This is a ponerine ant. They live in small colonies. This subfamily is mostly tropical (i.e. "bullet ants" and the like), so ID to genus, or even species should be relatively easy.

… Eric R. Eaton, 14 April, 2005 - 9:21pm

Change in taxonomy

Hi Eric. It's worth noting that the heterogenous subfamily Ponerinae has recently been broken up into several smaller and probably monophyletic subfamilies (see Bolton 2003), and the Amblyopone pallipes ant pictured here now belongs to the Amblyoponinae.

Myrmecos.net - high quality insect images

… Alex Wild, 16 July, 2005 - 4:53pm