Aparatermes thornatus Pinzon and Scheffrahn, 2019

Pinzón Florian, O. P., Scheffrahn, Rudolf H. & Carrijo, Tiago F., 2019, Aparatermes thornatus (Isoptera: Termitidae: Apicotermitinae), a new species of soldierless termite from northern Amazonia, Florida Entomologist 102 (1), pp. 141-146 : 142-144

Aparatermes thornatus Pinzon and Scheffrahn sp. nov. 2018

Imago. Unknown Worker ( Table 1 , Figs. 1-3D ).

TYPE MATERIAL

HOLOTYPE (worker) colony. Type locality: Francisco de Orellana, Parque Nacional Yasuni, 0.672000°W, 76.398000°S, 2-VI-2011, col. Scheffrahn, Chase, Mangold, Krecek, Myles, Nishimura, Setter, EC 1334. All the type material will be kept at Universidad Distrital “Francisco Jose de Caldas ”.

ECUADOR: Holotype (worker) colony Francisco de Orellana, Parque Nacional Yasuni , 0.6720°W, 76.3980°S, 2-VI-2011, col. Scheffrahn, Chase, Mangold, Krecek, Myles, Nishimura, Setter, EC 1332-EC1334.

FRENCH GUIANA: Eau Crique Forest , 5.6310°W, 52.9840°S, 12-II-2008. col. J. Krecek , UF no. FG464; additional colonies (same data) FG177, FG775 . COLOMBIA: Casanare, Villanueva. Gallery Forest Caño “Los Micos”, 4.6420°W, 72.9260°S, 8-XI-2013, col. O. Pinzón ; LS 2013-1137, LS 2013-1573 (Colección Entomológica Forestal Universidad Distrital “ Francisco José de Caldas ”) . TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO: Mount Harris , 10.4670°W, 61.1230°S, 31-V-2003, col. Scheffrahn, Krecek, Chase, Mangold, Maharajh, Warner, TT 2018.

DESCRIPTION

Monomorphic. Head capsule dark orange to reddish brown; fontanelle spot large, lighter, and rather diffuse; spot ofen forming triangular apex with base along postclypeal suture ( Fig. 1A inset). Postclypeus strongly inflated; labrum trapezoidal in dorsal view. Antennal articles becoming darker toward apex. Pronotum concolorous with fontanelle spot; posterolateral corners raised. Head and pronotum with numerous long setae interspersed with shorter setae. Foretibia slightly inflated; middle and hind tibia slender. Anterior of fore coxa usually lacking hairs; foretibia with about a dozen stout and a few slender setae along ventral margin. Dentition of mandibles as in Fig. 1E . Both mandibles with first marginal tooth projecting beyond apical tooth.

Digestive tube characterized by a rather small crop and voluminous P3. Mesenteron completes a full circle and is terminated by a short and thick mesenteral tongue. Proctodeal segment 1 is even in diameter along its 180° course; enteric valve seating trilobed. Enteric valve composed of 6 cushions each bearing thorn-like spines near their anterior bases; remainder of cushions covered with scale-like reticulations; cushions vary in size with the longest cushion furthest removed from the shortest.

ETYMOLOGY

The specific name refers to the 6 thorn-like spines on the enteric valve cushions.

COMPARISONS

Aparatermes thornatus workers fit Fontes (1986) and Bourguignon et al. (2010) generic description; however, several characters are very distinct from its 3 congeners. Of the 4 Aparatermes species, A. thornatus is the smallest. The head capsule coloration of A. abbreviatus , A. cingulatus , and A. silvestrii ranges from pale yellow to light orange ( Fontes 1986) whereas that of A. thornatus is strongly reddish in color. Another diagnostic character to separate A. thornatus from its congeners is that all of its enteric valve scaly cushions are thorn-adorned, whereas the other species vary in their thorn number (e.g., A. cingulatus Bourguignon et al. 2013 ) ( Fig. 3 ).

MOLECULAR ANALYSIS

The phylogenetic tree ( Fig. 5 ) recovered the genus Aparatermes as paraphyletic, with the species A. cingulatus and A. abbreviatus more closely related to Compositermes , Tetimatermes , and Ruptitermes . Aparatermes thornatus was recovered as a sister group of A. silvestrii . The sample Aparatermes sp. A , of Bourguignon et al. (2016a), was clustered within the 2 samples of A. thornatus , suggesting that these samples belong to the new species described herein. A BLAST search of the COI sequence from A. thornatus also gives a 97% similarity match with the sample reported by Bourguignon et al. (2016a).

ECOLOGY AND DISTRIBUTION

There are no behavioral notes of A. thornatus when collected; however, its flocculent gut contents suggest that they feed on rather rich organic debris. Their darker color suggests that A. thornatus workers might forage in the open as do species of Ruptitermes . The distribution of A. thornatus is currently known from northern Amazonia into Trinidad and Tobago ( Fig. 4 ). Aparatermes silvestrii has the broadest distribution from Trinidad and Tobago south to central Paraguay. Aparatermes abbreviatus and A. cingulatus straddle southern Amazonia to the north and extend in the drier regions southward to central Argentina.

Figures

Fig. 1. Aparatermes thornatus worker:(A) dorsal view of head and fore legs (inset shows coloration and pigment variant); (B) lateral view of head and thorax; (C) lateral view of habitus; (D) ventral view of fore coxae; (E) mandibles.

Fig. 2. Aparatermes thornatus worker gut: (A) dorsal; (B) lateral right; (C) ventral; (D) lateral lef views.Abbreviations of gut sections: C = crop,EVS = enteric valve seating, M = mesenteron, MT = mesenteric tongue, P1–P5 = proctodeal segments.

Fig. 3. Aparatermes enteric valve cushions: (A) A. cingulatus; (B) A. abbreviatus; (C) A. silvestrii; (D) A. thornatus.

Fig. 5. Bayesian phylogeny of all described soldierless New World genera using the mitochondrial Cytochrome Oxidase subunit 1 COI barcode gene showing pos- terior probabilities. Tree rooted on terminal Heterotermes crinitus.

Fig. 4. Distribution of Aparatermes from University of Florida Termite Collection records.