Formica pallidefulva Latreille

Trager, J. C., MacGown, J. A. & Trager, M. D., 2007, Revision of the Nearctic endemic Formica pallidefulva group., Advances in ant systematics (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): Homage to E. O. Wilson - 50 years of contributions. (Memoirs of the American Entomological Institute 80), pp. 610-636 : 624-627

publication ID

21293

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6245959

persistent identifier

https://treatment.plazi.org/id/FD93DA30-C3CF-37F1-FF7F-6EC4CF4D41F4

treatment provided by

Christiana

scientific name

Formica pallidefulva Latreille
status

 

Formica pallidefulva Latreille View in CoL   HNS

Figures 4 a, 5 a, 6 a

Formica   HNS pallide-fulva Latreille, 1802 [Types not seen, supposedly type-compared material in MCZ examined]

Formica schaufussi Mayr   HNS , 1886 [Lectotype designated, labelled N. Amer. / Schauf. " (NHWC)] Syn. nov.

Formica pallidefulva subsp. nitidiventris Emery   HNS , 1893 [Type examined.]310 B Wokland (?). D. C. with Polyergus lucidus   HNS . Paratype. Formica nitidiventris A. F.   HNS 1968] Syn. nov.

Formica pallidefulva subsp. fuscata Emery   HNS , 1893. [Lectotype examined.]Beatty PA. No. 314.

LECTOTYPE Formica pallidefulva fuscata   HNS A. F. 1968. Synonymy, under nitidiventris   HNS , by Creighton, 1950: 551.

Formica pallidefulva var. succinea Wheeler   HNS , W. M. 1904 [Syntypes examined] Four workers on one pin, Bee Creek. Travis Co. TEX. XI. 9.02 M. C. Z. Type 5 - 8 8844 var. succinea   HNS Wheeler. Synonymy by Creighton, 1950: 550.

Formica (Neoformica) pallidefulva   HNS : Wheeler, W. M., 1913 b [Vouchers examined] ( MCZ)

Formica (Neoformica) pallidefulva subsp. delicata Cole   HNS , 1938 [Syntypes examined] 24 workers on 8 pins. Ten Sleep WY 9 / 31 A. C. Cole. Synonymy, under nitidiventris   HNS , by Creighton, 1950: 551.

Formica (Neoformica) pallidefulva   HNS : Creighton, 1950, in part [Vouchers examined] ( MCZ, LACM)

Formica (Neoformica) pallidefulva subsp. nitidiventris   HNS : Creighton, 1950, in part [Vouchers examined] ( MCZ, LACM)

DIAGNOSIS

Worker Includes conventional reddish or brownish yellow F. pallidefulva   HNS , as well as darker populations known as F. p. nitidiventris   HNS and its synonyms F. p. fuscata   HNS and F. p. delicata   HNS . This is the shiniest Formica   HNS of this group (though smaller workers of F. biophilica   HNS and some series of F. incerta   HNS are also quite shiny). The mesosoma often lacks either appressed pubescence or erect pilosity, or has relatively few, short, erect macrochaetae (Fig. 6 a). Pubescence, even on gaster, short and sparse (Fig. 4 a). Sculpture faint to nearly smooth, best developed (to the point of slightly weakening the sheen) in the northeastern part of the range, where the form fuscata   HNS occurs. The gaster appears more voluminous than in other members of the group, and is quite shiny, as reflected in the name nitidiventris   HNS . Color is highly variable, generally uniform dark brown in Canada and New England, the Black Hills and western mountain areas, and concolorous coppery yellow or weakly bicolored (gaster a little browner) in the deep South. Various intermediate conditions occur in a broad band of territory from southern Missouri and northern Arkansas, across the upper South to the foothills of the southern Appalachians in Georgia and the Carolinas, and occasionally elsewhere. The transition area between typical pallidefulva   HNS and typical nitidiventris   HNS is a 300 - mile wide band straddling the Mason-Dixon Line. In it, one may occasionally find single-queen colonies containing nearly the full range of color variation. The extreme color forms are weakly distinguished morphometrically, with far northern populations having slightly shorter scapes, but the variation is clinal through the zone of transition (mean SI = 143.08 in the South, 140.94 in transition zone, 139.68 in the North).

Queen Color, gastral pubescence and shininess like the workers, with the usual differences in size. Sculpture very faint; pubescence short and sparse; pilosity sparse; wings, when present, clear to amber. Mesoscutum lacking the three dark spots characteristic of incerta   HNS queens, or these weakly distinct.

Male Pubescence sparse; surface more shining than other species; rarely concolorous dark brown (in those colonies with the most uniformly dark workers), most commonly in north and Rocky Mountains and clinal transition zone with head and gaster blackish and mesosoma a little lighter to clear yellowish brown; in south and Great Plains, concolorous honey-red or with only the head notably darker; wings clear to amber-colored.

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES

Most, if not all records of pallidefulva   HNS within the northern part of its range, where the color form nitidiventris   HNS occurs, are usually F. biophilica   HNS or occasionally are lighter color morphs of F. incerta   HNS . The short, sparse, gastral pubescence, lack or sparseness of pilosity on the mesosomal dorsum, and the short, straight and flattened gastral pilosity of F. pallidefulva   HNS is distinctive for this species in any of its color variants. The difference in SI strongly discriminates this species from F. incerta   HNS (Table 1). The setal characteristics, the shininess and globulous gaster of this species were expressly mentioned by Latreille (1802) in his original Latin description. Among the species in the group, F. pallidefulva   HNS is the only one to frequently lack detectable macrochaetae on the pronotum (34 of 57 specimens) and propodeum (33 of 57 specimens). When mesosomal dorsal pilosity is present in F. pallidefulva   HNS , the macrochaetae average shorter than in other species and are usually most numerous on the mesonotum rather than on the pronotum or on the propodeum (Table 1). Bright-colored southern F. pallidefulva   HNS may be distinguished from less pilose nanitic and small workers of F. biophilica   HNS by the nearly perfectly rounded propodeum and straight, flattened gastral macrochaetae of F. pallidefulva   HNS (versus often faintly right-angular propodeum and narrowly curviconical gastral macrochaetae in F. biophilica   HNS ).

ETYMOLOGY

This name was coined by Latreille from the Latin adjectives pallidus plus fulvus meaning pale reddish yellow. This neatly describes the southern, lighter colored variants of this species. Northeastern, Midwestern and western mountain populations of this species are predominantly of darker, black-coffee-brown coloration, but even in these locations many individuals and colonies are bicolored and some may have coloring closer to that of southern populations.

RANGE AND HABITAT

Abundant and certainly the most widely distributed species of the group, F. pallidefulva   HNS occurs farther north, west and south than others in the group, except that F. archboldi   HNS perhaps extends farther south in Florida. F. pallidefulva   HNS occurs throughout the eastern United States and southeastern Canada, then west across the US Great Plains to the lower-elevation Rocky Mountains from Wyoming to New Mexico. F. pallidefulva   HNS also has considerable habitat latitude. This ant lives in a variety of native and anthropogenic plant communities and soil types, including dry-mesic to mesic grasslands, woodlands and forests, thickets, lawns, campuses and parks. It is most abundant in mesic, wooded or partially wooded areas, from city parks to closedcanopy forests. In the lower rainfall areas of the Great Plains, it is uncommon and probably restricted to riparian woodlands (Milford, 1999). In the Rocky Mountains, it occurs at lower elevations in meadows, mixed mesophytic forests and in parks and suburbs. F. pallidefulva   HNS does not occur in bogs, wet meadows or fens, where it is replaced, in the South by F. biophilica   HNS and in the North by other Formica   HNS species outside the pallidefulva-group such as F. montana   HNS , F. glacialis   HNS Wheeler, and others.

SPECIMENS EXAMINED

(CANADA) ONTARIO: Lambton; Lowick; QUEBEC: Chateauguay. (UNITED STATES) ALABAMA: Baldwin; Bibb; DeKalb; Lawrence; Morgan; Tuscaloosa; ARKANSAS: Logan; Washington; COLORADO: Boulder; DELAWARE: Kent; FLORIDA: Alachua; Brevard; Clay; Highlands; Liberty; GEORGIA: Clarke; Floyd; ILLINOIS: Tazewell; IOWA: Emmet; Johnson; Winneshiek; KANSAS: Douglas; Reno; Wallace; KENTUCKY: Nelson; MARYLAND: Allegany; Anne Arundel; Kent; Prince Georges; MASSACHUSETTS: Barnstable; MICHIGAN: Calhoun; Livingston; MISSISSIPPI: Alcorn; Chickasaw; Itawamba; Lafayette; Lee; Lowndes; Oktibbeha; Panola; Pontotoc; Tishomingo; Webster; Winston; MISSOURI: Audrain; Franklin; Johnson; Lincoln; Ste. Genevieve; St. Louis; NEBRASKA: Hall; Dawson; NEW MEXICO: Colfax; Otero; Rio Arriba; Union; NEW YORK: Orange; Suffolk; NORTH CAROLINA: Yancey; OHIO: Franklin; Sandusky; OKLAHOMA: Latimer; PENNSYLVANIA: Alegheny; Indiana; SOUTH CAROLINA: Anderson; Charleston; SOUTH DAKOTA: Jones; Pennington; TEXAS: Bastrop; Cass; Culberson; Hemphill; VIRGINIA: Montgomery; WYOMING: Crook; Washakie.

NATURAL HISTORY

Nests of F. pallidefulva   HNS may be located in bare soil of grassland and forest footpaths, beneath leaf litter, under small diameter (<10 cm) fallen tree limbs, or under bark of a decomposing stump. Less often the nest occupies a larger, punky, rotten log, especially during late spring when the sexual brood is being reared. F. pallidefulva   HNS is the only species in this group which normally inhabits closed-canopy mesic forests and which commonly nests in rotting wood. In non-wooded settings F. pallidefulva   HNS may build a small mound nestled in or beside a grass clump.

In the northern and Rocky Mountain parts of its range, at least, the dark brown form of F. pallidefulva   HNS is the host to the slavemaker Polyergus lucidus montivagus   HNS Wheeler. We have seen F. pallidefulva   HNS with this slavemaker in colonies from Long Island, southern Ontario, central Illinois, northern Missouri and Rocky Mountain foothill locales in Colorado and New Mexico. We have seen specimens that look like this Polyergus   HNS in the South (northern Mississippi) and we suspect it uses the reddish, southern form of F. pallidefulva   HNS there, but have not yet been able to confirm this with a nest collection. Formica creightoni   HNS raids this ant in northern Missouri oak woodlands, where its usual F. neogagates   HNS group hosts are lacking. F. pallidefulva   HNS is the most frequent of the many hosts of F. pergandei   HNS in Midwest woodlands and savannas.

In the lawns and gardens of the St. Louis, Missouri, area, F. pallidefulva   HNS is among the native ants most sensitive to subterranean invasion and extermination by the introduced and rapidly spreading invasive ant Tetramorium tsushimae   HNS (Steiner et al., 2006). However, throughout much of the Southeast, F. pallidefulva   HNS often manages to coexist with low-density Solenopsis invicta Buren   HNS , Solenopsis richteri Forel   HNS , and Solenopsis richteri   HNS invicta   HNS populations.

Occasionally, workers and sexuals become covered with a mite (Oplitis sp.?) that reduces their energy level and may cause the demise of the colony. In eastern Missouri, F. pallidefulva   HNS colonies are commonly raided by the slavemaker / ant-predator F. rubicunda Emery   HNS , which uses F. pallidefulva   HNS as prey only ( F. rubicunda   HNS enslaves only F. subsericea   HNS ). When nesting in rotting wood, F. pallidefulva   HNS colonies may sometimes be pillaged by pileated woodpeckers. F. pallidefulva   HNS often gathers honeydew beneath hemipteran-infested plants or from their leaf surfaces, but they have not often been observed to gather honeydew directly from the hemipterans. Furthermore, F. pallidefulva   HNS makes little effort to defend hemipterans, in contrast to F. incerta   HNS and F. archboldi   HNS , which often tend and defend them.

Sexuals are present in the nests as early as April in Florida, but not until July in New England and Canada. Males were observed to gather around the nest entrance around sunset in Florida, and males are often lured to lights (but winged females are not) throughout the range. In Missouri, J. Trager observed males, followed by females, flying from the nest, one by one, shortly after sunrise. Despite rather frequent capture of males at lights after dusk, the actual mating flight period is in the morning. In eastern Missouri, J. Trager has over the years caught numerous recently mated females walking about in late morning or early afternoon. Dates of these captures occur from 26 June into early July.

Unlike other species of this group, worker pupae most often lack cocoons in F. pallidefulva   HNS . Wheeler (1904) first noted this contrast between F. pallidefulva   HNS and F. incerta   HNS in Connecticut, and it was also later noted by Talbot (1948) in Michigan. This difference holds true in numerous colonies of the two species sampled in Missouri by J. Trager. In some colonies of F. pallidefulva   HNS , male pupae may also lack cocoons, but queen pupae nearly always are enclosed in cocoons.

MCZ

USA, Massachusetts, Cambridge, Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology

LACM

USA, California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Arthropoda

Class

Insecta

Order

Hymenoptera

Family

Formicidae

Genus

Formica

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