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Species Cyphomyrmex rimosus

Bring Out Your Dead! - Cyphomyrmex rimosus Cyphomyrmex - Cyphomyrmex rimosus Formicid - Cyphomyrmex rimosus Cyphomyrmex - Cyphomyrmex rimosus Cyphomyrmex riimosus? - Cyphomyrmex rimosus Cyphomyrmex rimosus Cyphomyrmex rimosus - female Cyphomyrmex rimosus - female
Classification
Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)
Class Insecta (Insects)
Order Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies)
No Taxon (Aculeata - Ants, Bees and Stinging Wasps)
Superfamily Formicoidea (Ants)
Family Formicidae (Ants)
Subfamily Myrmicinae
Tribe Attini
Subtribe Attina (Fungus Growing Ants)
Genus Cyphomyrmex
Species rimosus (Cyphomyrmex rimosus)
Synonyms and other taxonomic changes
Cyphomyrmex rimosus (Spinola)
Orig. Comb: Cryptocerus rimosus Spinola, 1851
Identification
Similar to Cyphomyrmex minutus but larger and more widespread, with a deep hairless furrow on the dorsum of the postpetiole extending well into the first gastric tergite.
C. minutusC. rimosus


Please note that this trait apparently only works reliably in Florida and east of the Mississippi. There are a large amount of intergrades in this group from ~central Texas south to Brazil that have not been sorted out yet. - U. Mueller pers. comm.
Range
TX-FL-NC (native to the Neotropics, adventive in the se US.)
Habitat
Leaf litter and other detritus, most often in disturbed areas/human habitat.
Food
A fungus grower, raises its yeast-like mutualist fungus on scraps of dead insects and frass.
Print References
Murakami, T. and S. Higashi. 1997. Social organization in two primitive attine ants, Cyphomyrmex rimosus and Myrmicocrypta ednaella, with reference to their fungus substrates and food sources. J. Ethol., 15: 17-25.
Kempf, W.W. (1966 (1965)) A revision of the Neotropical fungus-growing ants of the genus Cyphomyrmex Mayr. Part II: Group ofrimosus (Spinola) (Hym., Formicidae). Stud. Entomol., 8: 161-200.
Internet References
Ants of se US - Joe MacGown, 2013