family

FORMICIDAE

subfamily

Ponerinae

genus

Amblyopone


ITIS

 

Amblyopone silvestrii

Hymenoptera On-Line

 

Amblyopone silvestrii

FORMIS

 

Amblyopone silvestrii



species

Amblyopone silvestrii


Japanese Name

Nokogiri-hari-ari

Original Reference

Wheeler, W.M. (1928) Ants collected by Professor F. Silvestri in Japan and Korea. Bollettino del Laboratorio di Zoologia generale e agraria del R. Istituto Superiore agrario di Portici 22: 96-125.

Synonym

Stigmatomma silvestrii Wheeler, 1928, Amblyopone silvestrii (Wheeler): Brown, 1960

Description

Total length of workers around 3.5 - 4.5 mm. Body color yellowish brown to reddish brown. The largest Japanese Amblyopone species, distinguished from the rest by its 12-segmented antennae and mandibular dentition, with numerous denticles double-ranked denticles. The frontal lobes cover the antennal insertions and are well separated.

Remarks

A. silvestrii apparently feeds mainly on centipedes (Masuko, 1981). Masuko (1986) discovered the peculiar habit of larval haemolymph feeding, whereby queens wound larvae non-lethally and imbibe their haemolymph as food. Distributed quite widely from near Sapporo in Hokkaido (Onoyama,1989a) to Iriomote Island, but relatively rare.

Distribution

Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu, Tsushima I., Nansei Is; Korean Peninsula, Taiwan.

References

  • Masuko, K. (1981). Predatory behavior of some forest floor dwelling ants. . Insects and Nature, 16(3), 19-25. .
  • Masuko, K. (1986). Larval hemolymph feeding: a nondestructive parental cannibalism in the primitive ant Amblyopone silvestrii Wheeler (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). . Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol., 19, 249-255.
  • Onoyama, K. (1989). Three ants (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) new to Hokkaido, Japan. . Jpn. J. Ent., 57, 604.

Editor

Original text by Keiichi Onoyama. Revised by Masashi Yoshimura. English translation by Keiichi Onoyama, edited by Robert W. Taylor.