In Costa Rica this is a moderately common species in disturbed areas in the seasonally dry northwest portion of the country. I have collected it in Santa Rosa National Park, where I observed workers recruiting to a dead grasshopper on an asphalt road. I also have records from Curu on the Nicoya Peninsula and La Pita on the road from the PanAmerican highway to Monteverde. I have never found a nest of the species.
Mexico south to Costa Rica, many Caribbean islands. Uncertain whether native in Costa Rica.
Taxonomic history
Forel, 1893j PDF: 388 (q.); Forel, 1897b PDF: 300 (m.); Wheeler, 1905c PDF: 88 (q.m.).Subspecies of Monomorium carbonarium: Wheeler, 1905c PDF: 88; Forel, 1912h PDF: 3; Mann, 1922 PDF: 29; Wheeler, 1942 PDF: 198.Raised to species: Forel, 1913m PDF: 218; DuBois, 1986 PDF: 103.This species is similar to M. compressum and, to a lesser extent, to M. cyaneum . A characteristic that appears to separate it from similar species is the petiolar profile, which in frontal view is flat to weakly concave.
