goniops group overview

With five species (two described as new here), the goniops group spans the low-to-mid elevations of Central America and the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico (Fig. 114). Nest collections of the members of this group have been rare and restricted to those made from orchids in quarantine at United States ports of entry. Other collections have been made from leaf litter extractions. The generalized habitus of the members of this group make them easy to confuse with others in the salvini clade. They can be separated from other species with conservative morphology such as the acuminatus group, T. acutispinosus sp. nov., and T. altinodus sp. nov. by the presence of erect setae on the dorsum of the propodeum (absent in the preceding species), from T. subditivus by the petiolar node (squamiform in T. subditivus), and from members of the pulchellus group by geography (the pulchellus group spans the islands of the Caribbean and southern Florida).