Tapinoma ramulorum inrectum Forel, 1908

Pazmiño-Palomino, Alex & Troya, Adrian, 2022, Ants of Ecuador: new species records for a megadiverse country in South America, Revista Brasileira de Entomologia (e 20210089) 66 (2), pp. 1-15 : 3

Tapinoma ramulorum inrectum Forel, 1908

Figa. 2, 21A

Material examined. Ecuador. Pichincha: Bosque Protector Mashpi , 0.1666°N, 78.8869°W, 895m, 50☿, 1♀, 2020-01-03, Pazmiño, A., hand collected, ( MECN) .

Comments. This species shows very long antennal scapes, about one third of their length extends beyond the posterior head margin; in frontal view, margin of vertex evenly rounded, not medially emarginate. T. ramulorum inrectum nests in small carton structures beneath leaves. It is the only species of the genus that uses a living resource for nesting (Guerrero, unpublished data). In the Mashpi cloud forest reserve APP observed colonies on the underside of leaves ofPalicourea sp. ( Rubiaceae ) and Heliconia sp. ( Heliconiaceae ) on tourist trails, but also on human-made, metallic-based constructions. Mashpi lies in a complex of foothill forests in northwestern Ecuador, where the Chocoan and Andean biota converge. This population is more than 900 Km away from the southernmost record known so far. The status of this taxon will possibly change to species in the coming future, as is the case with other subspecies within the genus ( Escárraga et al., 2021; Guerrero, personal communication). Tapinoma ramulorum inrectum was previously known only in Central America ( Janicki et al., 2016).