Gigantiopini Ashmead 1905

Ward, Philip S., Blaimer, Bonnie B. & Fisher, Brian L., 2016, A revised phylogenetic classification of the ant subfamily Formicinae (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), with resurrection of the genera Colobopsis and Dinomyrmex, Zootaxa 4072 (3), pp. 343-357 : 347

Tribe Gigantiopini Ashmead 1905

Genus: Gigantiops .

Comments. This remains a monotypic tribe, represented by a single taxonomically isolated species, Gigantiops destructor , restricted to northern South America. The molecular phylogeny recovers Gigantiops as sister to Santschiella ( Figure 1 ), a monotypic African genus, but support for this relationship is not strong, so we retain a separate tribe for Santschiella . Although both genera share distinctively large eyes, they differ markedly in configuration of the frontoclypeal complex, with the antennal insertions of Gigantiops being located close to one another and between the eyes ( Bolton 2003).

Figures

FIGURE 1. Phylogeny of the ant subfamily Formicinae based on 959 UCE (ultraconserved element) loci (Blaimer et al. 2015). Support values are maximum likelihood bootstrap percentages. The tree depicts six major clades, here treated as tribes, and five isolated genera subtended by long branches (Gesomyrmex, Gigantiops, Myrmoteras, Oecophylla, and Santschiella, in bold font). Note that species assigned to Camponotus occur as three separate lineages within the tribe Camponotini, and that Phasmomyrmex and Forelophilus are embedded within Camponotus (sensu stricto).