Tetraponera

Life-forms

Superregnum: Eukaryota
Cladus: Unikonta
Cladus: Opisthokonta
Cladus: Holozoa
Regnum: Animalia
Subregnum: Eumetazoa
Cladus: Bilateria
Cladus: Nephrozoa
Cladus: Protostomia
Cladus: Ecdysozoa
Cladus: Panarthropoda
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Hexapoda
Classis: Insecta
Cladus: Dicondylia
Subclassis: Pterygota
Cladus: Metapterygota
Infraclassis: Neoptera
Cladus: Eumetabola
Cladus: Endopterygota
Superordo: Hymenopterida
Ordo: Hymenoptera
Subordo: Apocrita
Superfamilia: Formicoidea

Familia: Formicidae
Subfamilia: Pseudomyrmecinae
Genus: Tetraponera
Species: T. aethiops – T. aitkenii – T. allaborans – T. ambigua – T. andrei – T. angusta – T. angustata – T. anthracina – T. arrogans – T. atra – T. attenuata – T. bidentata – T. bifoveolata – T. binghami – T. birmana – T. braunsi – T. brevicornis – T. capensis – T. carbonaria – T. claveaui – T. clypeata – T. demens – T. dentifera – T. diana – T. difficilis – T. dilatata – T. emacerata – T. emeryi – T. encephala – T. erythraea – T. exasciata – T. fictrix – T. flexuosa – T. fulva – T. gerdae – T. grandidieri – T. humerosa – T. hysterica – T. klebsi – T. lacrimarum – T. laeviceps – T. latifrons – T. ledouxi – T. lemoulti – T. liengmei – T. maffini – T. mandibularis – T. mayri – T. microcarpa – T. minuta – T. mocquerysi – T. modesta – T. monardi – T. morondaviensis – T. nasuta – T. natalensis – T. nicobarensis – T. nigra – T. nitens – T. nitida – T. ocellata – T. oligocenica – T. ophthalmica – T. penzigi – T. perlonga – T. petiolata – T. pilosa – T. platynota – T. plicatidens – T. poultoni – T. prelli – T. punctulata – T. rakotonis – T. rufipes – T. rufonigra – T. sahlbergii – T. schulthessi – T. scotti – T. siggi – T. simplex – T. stipitum – T. tessmanni – T. thagatensis – T. triangularis – T. zavattarii
Name

Tetraponera Smith, 1852

Type species: Tetraponera atrata (junior synonym of Tetraponera nigra), by subsequent designation of W.M. Wheeler, 1911.
Synonyms

Pachysima Emery
Parasima Donisthorpe
Viticicola Wheeler
Sima Roger

References

Smith, F. 1852: Descriptions of some hymenopterous insects captured in India, with notes on their oeconomy, by Ezra T. Downes, Esq., who presented them to the Honourable the East India Company. Annals and magazine of natural history (2), 9: 44–50. BHL handle
Ward, P.S. 2009: The ant genus Tetraponera in the Afrotropical region: the T. grandidieri group (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Journal of Hymenoptera research, 18: 285–304. BHL
Xu, Z.-H. & Z.Q. Chai 2004: Systematic study on the ant genus Tetraponera F. Smith (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) of China. Acta Zootaxonomica Sinica 29(1): 63–76. Full article: [1].

Links

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Nomenclator Zoologicus

etraponera is a genus of ants in the subfamily Pseudomyrmecinae that are commonly known as slender ants and are characterized by their arboreal nature and slender bodies. The 96 described species of Tetraponera all live in hollow structures of plants and trees, such as thorns or branches; these hosts are known as myrmecophytes. Tetraponera species are closely related to the New World genus of ants Pseudomyrmex, but differ in their relationships with host plants.

Mutualisms and behaviour

Tetraponera species are generally defined by the myrmecophytes they inhabit and the mutualistic relationship they share.[2] These host plants always have hollow thorns or branches in which the ants can live and form a colony. Also, the myrmecophytes provide energy rich food sources such as extrafloral nectar and/or food bodies. All Tetraponera species have gut symbionts that allow them to digest amino acid-deficient food provided by their host plants; these gut bacteria are especially important for the species that only survive on the myrmecophyte-provided foods.

All Tetraponera species provide protection for their host plants through aggressive nature towards other insects and trimming leaves/branches of neighbouring plants. Living in hollow structures of the plants allows the ants to detect vibrations when larger insects land on the plant, or workers on patrol visually detect smaller intruders. Once detected, sophisticated pheromone systems allow the ants to quickly outnumber and overpower any invaders. Most insect invaders are killed and discarded by Tetraponera workers such as caterpillars and aphids, but some are killed and consumed. The insects that take the most time and effort to kill are generally consumed; these are mostly katydids or leaf beetles.

As well as assaulting and killing insects that attack their host plant, Tetraponera ants will attack any mammals that present a threat. Inflicting the mammals with painful stings will usually deter them from attacking the plant.

In some arboreal ant species, not just Tetraponera, a third partner in ant-myrmecophyte mutualisms is hemipteran trophobionts. These insects provide a possible third source of food for the ants, in return the ants feed and “nurture” the Hemiptera inside their colonies.
Distribution

Tetraponera species are found commonly in the warmer regions of Africa, Asia, and Australia. Different species are associated with different plant species. The most common myrmecophytes for Tetraponera are acacias, but the wide variety of hosts for this genus include bamboos and lianas. Tetraponera ants trim neighbouring plants to prevent any intrusion of other ants or caterpillars from those plants and to reduce resource competition for their host. Tetraponera species only leave their myrmecophyte to start a new colony on a different host; a queen and a number of workers leave the old host plant to allow the colony to continue to expand.

Lifecycle and castes
A slender ant worker

Tetraponera, like most ants, has one or a few queens that are the only females to reproduce in a colony. The sterile workers are all females that forage for food and defend the colony. Males are produced only during certain times of the year and disperse to mate with virgins queens from other colonies. Since ants are haplodiploid, they can control what sex their offspring will be; an unfertilised egg will become a male, while a fertilised egg will be female. This reliably restricts the production of male alates to the species' mating season, when the winged virgin queens and males fly from their home colonies to mate and start new colonies.

The eggs produced by the queen hatch into larvae which are cared for inside the colony, protected from any predators by the workers. The amount of care each female larva receives determines its fate as a worker or a new queen; all males are drones. When a new colony is formed, eggs are initially produced at a low rate, but this quickly increases in the second to fourth years, to ensure enough workers are produced to protect and provide for the growing colony.
Species

Tetraponera aethiops Smith, 1877
Tetraponera aitkenii (Forel, 1902)
Tetraponera allaborans (Walker, 1859)
Tetraponera amargina Xu & Chai, 2004
Tetraponera ambigua (Emery, 1895)
Tetraponera andrei (Mayr, 1895)
Tetraponera anthracina (Santschi, 1910)
Tetraponera apiculata Ward, 2001
Tetraponera atra Donisthorpe, 1949
Tetraponera attenuata Smith, 1877
Tetraponera avia Ward, 2001
Tetraponera bifoveolata (Mayr, 1895)
Tetraponera binghami (Forel, 1902)
Tetraponera bita Ward, 2001
Tetraponera brevis Ward, 2001
Tetraponera buops Ward, 2001
Tetraponera caffra (Santschi, 1914)
Tetraponera clypeata (Emery, 1886)
Tetraponera concava Xu & Chai, 2004
Tetraponera conica Ward, 2001
Tetraponera connectens Ward, 2001
Tetraponera continua (Forel, 1907)
Tetraponera convexa Xu & Chai, 2004
Tetraponera cortina Ward, 2022
Tetraponera crassiuscula (Emery, 1900)
Tetraponera diana (Santschi, 1911)
Tetraponera difficilis (Emery, 1900)
Tetraponera dispar Ward, 2022
Tetraponera elegans Ward, 2022
Tetraponera emeryi (Forel, 1911)
Tetraponera erythraea (Emery, 1895)
†Tetraponera europaea Dlussky, 2009
Tetraponera exactor Ward, 2022
Tetraponera exasciata (Forel, 1892)
Tetraponera extenuata Ward, 2001
Tetraponera fictrix (Forel, 1897)
Tetraponera furcata Xu & Chai, 2004
Tetraponera furtiva Ward, 2022
Tetraponera gerdae (Stitz, 1911)
Tetraponera grandidieri (Forel, 1891)
†Tetraponera groehni Dlussky, 2009
Tetraponera hespera Ward, 2009
Tetraponera hirsuta Ward, 2009
Tetraponera hysterica (Forel, 1892)
Tetraponera inermis Ward, 2009
Tetraponera insularis Ward, 2022
Tetraponera inversinodis Ward, 2001
†Tetraponera klebsi (Wheeler, 1915)
Tetraponera kosi Ward, 2022
†Tetraponera lacrimarum (Wheeler, 1915)
Tetraponera laeviceps (Smith, 1859)
Tetraponera latifrons (Emery, 1912)
Tetraponera liengmei (Forel, 1894)
Tetraponera longula (Emery, 1895)
Tetraponera manangotra Ward, 2009
Tetraponera mandibularis (Emery, 1895)
Tetraponera mayri (Forel, 1901)
Tetraponera merita Ward, 2009
Tetraponera microcarpa Wu & Wang, 1990
Tetraponera mimula Ward, 2001
Tetraponera mocquerysi (André, 1890)
Tetraponera modesta (Smith, 1860)
Tetraponera morondaviensis (Forel, 1891)
Tetraponera natalensis (Smith, 1858)
Tetraponera nigra (Jerdon, 1851)
Tetraponera nitida (Smith, 1860)
Tetraponera nixa Ward, 2001
Tetraponera nodosa Ward, 2001
Tetraponera notabilis Ward, 2001
†Tetraponera ocellata (Mayr, 1868)
†Tetraponera oligocenica (Théobald, 1937)
Tetraponera ophthalmica (Emery, 1912)
Tetraponera parops Ward, 2006
Tetraponera pedana Ward, 2022
Tetraponera penzigi (Mayr, 1907)
Tetraponera periyarensis Bharti & Akbar, 2014
Tetraponera perlonga Santschi, 1928
Tetraponera phragmotica Ward, 2006
Tetraponera pilosa (Smith, 1858)
Tetraponera polita Ward, 2001
Tetraponera protensa Xu & Chai, 2004
Tetraponera pumila Ward, 2022
Tetraponera punctulata Smith, 1877
Tetraponera rakotonis (Forel, 1891)
Tetraponera redacta Ward, 2022
Tetraponera rotula Ward, 2001
Tetraponera rufonigra (Jerdon, 1851)
Tetraponera sahlbergii (Forel, 1887)
Tetraponera schulthessi (Santschi, 1915)
Tetraponera setosa Ward, 2022
†Tetraponera simplex (Mayr, 1868)
Tetraponera tessmanni (Stitz, 1910)
Tetraponera tucurua Ward, 2001
Tetraponera variegata (Forel, 1895)
Tetraponera vivax Ward, 2001
Tetraponera volucris Ward, 2001

References

Bolton, B. (2022). "Tetraponera". AntCat. Retrieved 28 February 2022.

Young, T.P.; Cynthia H. Stubblefield; Lynne A. Isbell (December 1996). "Ants on swollen-thorn acacias: species coexistence in a simple system". Oecologia. 109 (1): 98–107. doi:10.1007/s004420050063. PMID 28307618. S2CID 26354370.

Borm, S.V., A. Buschinger, J. J. Boomsma and J. Billen. 2002. Tetraponera ants have gut symbionts related to nitrogen-fixing root-nodule bacteria. Biological Sciences. 269:2023-2027.
Ward, P.S. 2001. Taxonomy, phylogeny and biogeography of the ant genus Tetraponera (Hymenoptera:Formicidae) in the Oriental and Australian regions Invertebrate Taxonomy. 15:589:665.
Dejean, A., J. Orivel and C. Djieto-Lordon. 2008. The plant ant Tetraponera aethiops (Pseudomyrmecinae) protects its host myrmecophyte Barteria fistulosa (Passifloraceae) through aggressiveness and predation. 93:63-69.
Australian Biological Resources and Study: Australian Faunal Directory. http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/abrs/online-resources/fauna/afd/taxa/Tetraponera