Melophorini Forel 1912

Ward, Philip S., Blaimer, Bonnie B. & Fisher, Brian L., 2016, A revised phylogenetic classification of the ant subfamily Formicinae (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), with resurrection of the genera Colobopsis and Dinomyrmex, Zootaxa 4072 (3), pp. 343-357 : 347-348

Tribe Melophorini Forel 1912

= Myrmecorhynchini Wheeler 1917 syn. n. = Notostigmatini Bolton 2003 syn. n.

Genera: Lasiophanes (tribal transfer), Melophorus , Myrmecorhynchus (tribal transfer), Notoncus (tribal transfer), Notostigma (tribal transfer), Prolasius (tribal transfer), Pseudonotoncus (tribal transfer), Stigmacros (tribal transfer), Teratomyrmex (tribal transfer).

Comments. This tribe formerly contained Melophorus only, but that genus is now known to be embedded within a larger, well-supported clade of ants ( Figure 1 ), which is confined to southern South America, Australia, New Zealand, and New Guinea, and for which the oldest available tribal name is Melophorini . A satisfactory morphological circumscription of this group awaits further study.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Phylogeny of the ant subfamily Formicinae based on 959 UCE (ultraconserved element) loci (Blaimer et al. 2015). Support values are maximum likelihood bootstrap percentages. The tree depicts six major clades, here treated as tribes, and five isolated genera subtended by long branches (Gesomyrmex, Gigantiops, Myrmoteras, Oecophylla, and Santschiella, in bold font). Note that species assigned to Camponotus occur as three separate lineages within the tribe Camponotini, and that Phasmomyrmex and Forelophilus are embedded within Camponotus (sensu stricto).