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Golden Black Sugar Ant
S2, dorsal
Golden Black Sugar Ant
S2, Mandibles
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| Golden Black Sugar Ant S2, dorsal | | Golden Black Sugar Ant S2, Mandibles | | ||
.JPG "Golden Black Sugar Ant (Camponotus (Myrmophyma) sp)") | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta) | |||
| Order: | Ant Bee Wasps (Hymenoptera) | ||||
| Family: | Modern Ant (Ant: Formicidae Formicinae) iNaturalist Observation | ||||
| Species: | Golden Black Sugar Ant (Camponotus (Myrmophyma) sp) | ||||
| This Photo: | 🔍S2, profile🔎 | ||||
Thank you Emmett Collins-Sussman for identifying this species for us General Species Information: Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere ~7mm long. Unfortunately the profile shot of the petiole has motion blur/double exposed; appears to have double the hairs than reality. We thought this was Camponotus aeneopilosus ssp aeneopilosus. Myrmophyma is a sub-genus of the Camponotus genus. Emmett said "The mesosoma shape doesn't match aeneopilosus -- large, domed promesonotum with a strongly concave propodeum, while aeneopilosus has a more evenly convex mesosoma. The head and mesosoma also have denser pubescence than aeneopilosus. I'm not sure whether McArthur 2007 is still considered relatively up to date and/or accurate, but scanning through that paper, this should key to chalceus group. As for species within chalceus group, the mesosoma being completely concolorous black would make this key to hartogi/innexus, which this is obviously not. On the other branch of the chalceus group key are fergusoni and pawseyi, which look very close. However, going by that key (and specimens on AntWeb and on iNat), fergusoni and pawseyi should have red on the propodeum. Ignoring the issue of color, pawseyi looks like a better match given that it is much hairier. So we think this should either be an odd concolorous C. pawseyi or an undescribed but very similar species. | |||||
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