Ecitoninae
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Most New World army ants belong to the subfamily Ecitoninae. This subfamily is further broken into two groups in the New World, the tribes Cheliomyrmecini and Ecitonini. The former contains only the genus Cheliomyrmex, and the tribe Ecitonini contains four genera, Neivamyrmex, Nomamyrmex, Labidus, and Eciton, the genus after which the group is named (Brady, 2003, Tree of Life). The genus Neivamyrmex is the largest of all army ant genera, containing some 120 species, all in the United States. The most predominant species of Eciton is Eciton burchellii, whose common name is "army ant" and which is considered to be the archetypal species.
The Old World army ants are divided between the two tribes Aenictini and Dorylini (often treated as Dorylini alone), each of which is made up of a single genus; in the former case, Aenictus, that contains over 100 species of army ant, while the Dorylini contains the aggressive "driver ants" in the genus Dorylus, of which there are some 70 species known.
Army ant taxonomy remains ever-changing, and genetic analysis will continue to provide more information about the relatedness of the various species; many genera contain large numbers of taxa at the rank of subspecies (e.g., Dorylus, in which some 60 of roughly 130 named taxa are only considered subspecies at present).
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[edit] New World Army Ants
There are about 150 species of army ants in the New World (that is, North, South, and Central America), all in the tribe Ecitonini. Although these army ant species are found from Kansas to Argentina, few people in North America realize that there are plenty of army ants living in the United States, in part because the colonies are rarely very abundant, and because the United States species (mostly genus Neivamyrmex) are quite small (~5 mm), with small and generally unobtrusive raiding columns, most often active at night, and easily overlooked.
Eciton burchellii and Eciton hamatum are the most visible and best studied of the New World army ants because they forage above ground and during the day, in enormous raiding swarms. Their range stretches from southern Mexico to the northern part of South America.
[edit] Old World Army Ants
There are over 100 species of army ants in the Old World, all in the tribe Dorylini (in some older classifications, also the tribe Aenictini), approximately equal numbers in the genera Aenictus and Dorylus. The latter group is by far the better-known, including the infamous "driver ants" (or "safari ants").
[edit] External links
Explore the New World Army Ant phylogeny:
[edit] References and further reading
- O'Donnell, S., Kasparim M., and Lattke, J. Extraordinary Predation by the Neotropical Army Ant Cheliomyrmex andicola: Implications for the Evolution of the Army Ant Syndrome. Biotropica 37: 706[1]
- Wilson, Edward O, and Bert Hölldobler, (1990) The Ants (Pulitzer Prize)
