Strumigenys pariensis Lattke & Goitia 1997

Brown and Wilson (1959) summarize the genus as follows: "Widespread in tropics and warm temperate areas. Primarily forest-dwelling; some species occur in grassland and arid scrub. ... Nests mostly in soil and rotting wood; a few species live in arboreal plant cavities in tropical rain forest. Foraging hypogaeic to epigaeic-arboreal. Food: most species are collembolan feeders; a few are polyphagous predators or occasionally feed on sugary substances..."

Members of the genus are all predaceous, with a kinetic mode of attack (Bolton 1999).

This species inhabits wet forest leaf litter. Lattke and Goitia (1997) discovered the species in 800m elevation cloud forest on the Paria Peninsula of Venezuela. They speculated that the species might be endemic to this cloud forest area, but its occurrence in mid-elevation wet forest sites in Costa Rica shows that it is more widespread than thought. Like so many leaf litter arthropods, its rarity may be due more to undersampling than to narrow endemism.

Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Venezuela. Costa Rica: Atlantic and southern Pacific wet forest around 500m elevation.

Like a robust version of elongata. Gastral setae are curved, like elongata, but with thicker bases, and not as strongly flagellate. The propodeal spines are a bit larger.

Strumigenys pariensis Lattke & Goitía, 1997 PDF: 388, figs. 28, 39, 45 (w.) VENEZUELA. Neotropic. AntCat AntWiki HOL

Taxonomic history

See also: Bolton, 2000: 511.