Schmidt, F.A., Feitosa, R.M., De Moraes Rezende, F. & Silva De Jesus, R.

News on the enigmatic ant genus Anillidris (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Dolichoderinae: Leptomyrmecini)

We collected 17 worker ants of Anillidris bruchi Santschi, 1936 in a semideciduous rainforest remnant in Viçosa, Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil, using a hypogaeic pitfall trap placed at a depth of 50 cm below the soil surface. We also report on the presence of a gyne from Cotia, São Paulo state, deposited at the Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil. Additionally, we present the first high-resolution images of the worker, male and female of A. bruchi. This inconspicuous species was previously known only from a few specimens collected in the 1930s in localities from southern Brazil, northern Argentina and a possible record from 1981 in western Paraguay. Regardless of the uncertain Paraguayan record, all known sampling localities have a common phytogeographic origin, sharing similar climatic and environmental characteristics. It has long been thought that A. bruchi was a rare species with a restricted distribution; however, the new record reported here suggests that this could be an artifact of sampling insufficiency related to the subterranean life style of this species. The present finding of A. bruchi reaffirms that the subterranean ant fauna is a promising frontier for studies on ant biodiversity with opportunities for new myrmecological discoveries.

Open access, licensed under CC BY 4.0. © 2014 The Author(s).

Brazil, hypogaeic pitfall trap, subterranean ants, seasonal semideciduous rainforests.