Echinotermes biriba Castro & Scheffrahn

Castro, Daniel, Scheffrahn, Rudolf H. & Carrijo, Tiago F., 2018, Echinotermesbiriba, a new genus and species of soldierless termite from the Colombian and Peruvian Amazon (Termitidae, Apicotermitinae), ZooKeys 748, pp. 21-30 : 24-25

Echinotermes biriba Castro & Scheffrahn sp. n.

Holotype.

Worker from colony CATAC 2736.

Type-locality.

COLOMBIA: Caquetá, Belén de los Andaquíes (1.60794, -75.88683).

Paratypes.

PERU: Pasco, Oxapampa, Chatarra forest, (-10.51303, -75.07276), 24/05/2014, 556 m, 14 workers (UF no. PU 144). Additional material: COLOMBIA: Caquetá, Belén de los Andaquíes, Camino Andaquí (1.60794, -75.88683), 31/01/2017, 625 m, 10 workers (CATAC 2736).

Description of worker.

(Fig. 1, Table 1) EV armature consists of six prominent spheroids each covered with robust spiny armature; three larger (ca. 30-35 spines) and three smaller (15-20 spines) alternate inside the EV seating. Enteric valve with six unsclerotized cushions some four times longer than wide, each composed of approx. 10-20 ovoid scales.

Diagnosis.

Unique armature of EV composed of alternating larger and smaller spheroids covered with robust spines.

Remarks.

See genus remarks above.

Ecology and distribution.

In Colombia, E. biriba foragers were collected in the same soil sample (0-10 cm depth) with Longustitermes manni . Gut contents confirm that E. biriba feeds on soil organic matter. This species is only known from the Chatarra forest in the southern Peruvian Amazon, and in a mature secondary forest in the northern Colombian Amazon (Fig. 4).

Molecular analysis.

The gene tree recovered the Neotropical Apicotermitinae (NA) as monophyletic, however, the position of Echinotermes biriba inside this clade could not be established with this single gene. The low posterior probability of almost every first branching clades in the NA group should be interpreted as a big polytomy, and the new genus as a branch in this polytomy, just as most of the other NA genera (Fig. 3).

Etymology.

The species name is due to the resemblance of the EV armature with the Amazonian fruit Rollinia mucosa (Jacq.) Baill. which is known as “biriba” in the region.