Pheidole rogeripolita Longino, 2019

Guerrero, Roberto J., García, Emira & Fernández, Fernando, 2022, The Pheidole Westwood, 1839 ants (Formicidae: Myrmicinae) in Colombia: new records including two species with remarkable morphology, Zootaxa 5154 (3), pp. 319-332 : 328

Pheidole rogeripolita Longino, 2019

( Figures 7–10 )

Material examined. Colombia: 4 minor workers, 1 soldier, Nariño, Altaquer, Barbacoas, El Barro , Reserva Natural Río Ñambí , grassy slope, 1.03, -78.083, alt. 1200m, Mar. 2006. Coll. S. Cabrera, at bait N°114 [ICN, CBUM, IAvH, MCZC, USNM] .

Minor worker measurements (n= 4): HW 0.83–0.93, HL 1.12–1.17, SL 1.63–1.88, EL 0.17–0.20, WL 1.51– 1.61, PSL 0.61–0.63, PTW 0.15, PPW 0.24–0.29, CI 73–79, SI 129–139, PSLI 10, PPI 167–171.

Soldier measurements (n= 1): HW 2.49, HL 2.24, SL 1.66, EL 0.27, WL 2.24, PSL 0.44, PTW 0.24, PPW 0.59, CI 98, SI 67, PSLI 17, PPI 240.

Distribution. Costa Rica, Colombia.

Comments. Longino (2019) described Pheidole rogeripolita as an ecological variant of the very similar P. rogeri Emery, 1896 , and DNA sequence data identify them as sister species (Longino, pers. com.). Longino (2019) stated that the soldiers of both species are very similar and indistinguishable, and the species could only be separated by the subtle surface sculpture differences in the minor worker. Longino (2019), however, overlooked an extremely different character between the two species: the antennal club. We examined images of the type series of P. rogeropolita (CASENT0646359, CASENT0636564, CASENT0646364, and JTLC000006466) and our ants collected in Nariño ( Colombia), and both minor workers and soldiers have a five-segment antennal club, whereas P. rogeri has a typical three-segmented antennal club.

Pheidole rogeripolita is the only known species with a five-segmented antennal club in the New World. Two other species, Pheidole sabahna Eguchi 2000 and Pheidole quinata Eguchi 2000 , have a five-segmented club. These two species are from Borneo, Java, and Sumatra ( Eguchi 2000). The five-segmented club is convergent, since P. rogeripolita is sister to P. rogeri within a New World group, while P. sabahna (and possibly P. quinata considering its morphological similarity and shared distribution with P. sabahna ) is in a monophyletic subgroup within the Asia-Africa clade ( Economo et al. 2019).

Figures

FIGURES 7–8. Bivariate plots of measurements of Pheidole praeusta Roger. 7. Relationship between WL and HL. 8. Relationship between HL and HW. The red solid line green solid line, and blue solid line correspond to the minor worker, soldier, and super soldier subcastes measurements, respectively.

FIGURES 9–12. Pheidole rogeripolita Longino. 9) Head in full-face view of the soldier. 10) Body in dorsal view of the soldier. 11) Head in full-face view of the worker. 12) Body in lateral view of the worker. Scale bar= 1 mm, except in Fig. 3 (Scale bar= 0.5 mm). Soldier (CBUMA:ENT20911) and minor worker (CBUMAG:ENT20912) photos by R.J. Guerrero.