Strumigenys aethegenys

Pyramica aethegenys Bolton 2000:179. Holotype worker: Costa Rica, Prov. Puntarenas, Osa Peninsula, Rancho Quemado, 8 degrees 42'N, 83 degrees 33'W, 2-300m, 15.xii.1990, #2760-s (Longino) [BMNH]. Paratype worker: Costa Rica, Prov. Limon, 3km SSE Cahuita, 9 degrees 43'N, 82 degrees 50'W, 70m, 24.xii.1983, #6530-12 (P. S. Ward) [UCD].

Natural History:

Brown (1959) characterized the genus Neostruma (now part of Pyramica, see Bolton 1999) as forming "small colonies, chiefly in the leaf litter of rain forest or tropical evergreen forest, and nests occupy cavities in rotting twigs, pieces of bark or similar forest-floor vegetable debris... The food... consists primarily of small entomobryomorph Collembola and possibly some other minute terrestrial arthropods as well. Hunting behavior is like that of Smithistruma [also now part of Pyramica] rather than like the Strumigenys so far studied."

This species is known from only two workers. Each one is from a Winkler sample of sifted leaf litter from the forest floor. Both samples were taken in lowland rainforest, one from the Osa Peninsula, and one from near Cahuita on the Atlantic coast.

Costa Rica: southern Atlantic and southern Pacific lowlands.

Taxonomic history