Pheidole biconstricta Mayr 1870

This species forms very large colonies. Nests may fill large rotten stumps or rotten logs (figures below). Often tell-tale piles of sawdust surround such nests, from workers excavating the interior. Workers are aggressive, and forage day or night. Large numbers of minor and major workers may be observed swarming out from nests and retrieving live insect prey, with a behavior reminiscent of army ants. Kugler (1979) has termed this "gang-pulling." Workers also have an enlarged pygidial gland that segretes a noxious gummy substance used in defense (Kugler 1979). Workers tend Homoptera and visit extrafloral nectar sources. Colonies may build scattered carton shelters on low vegetation and tend membracids and other Homoptera beneath them. Workers may aggressively defend extrafloral nectar sources (e.g. Passiflora shoots), driving away herbivores and other ants. Colonies use carton construction to form baffles in rotten wood, and galleries running up tree trunks. At Rara Avis, workers were observed tending large riodinid larvae under carton galleries.

Founding queens are found under loose bark of dead wood, in dead branches, and very commonly under epiphyte mats on recently fallen trees.

In Penas Blancas, Longino observed an interaction with phorid flies. Workers were streaming up a tree trunk. Phorids were hovering above. One landed on the head of a soldier. Afterwards, workers grabbed the soldier by the legs and slowly began to drag it down the trunk.

Throughout the mainland Neotropics, from Guatemala to Brazil and Bolivia. In Costa Rica: throughout the country in wet forest areas, to 1500m elevation in Monteverde.

Pheidole biconstricta Mayr, 1870a PDF: 399 (s.w.) COLOMBIA. Neotropic. Primary type information: Colombia, Santa Fé de Bogotá (Lindig) [NHMW, lectotype major, unique specimen identifier CASENT0916051]. AntCat AntWiki HOL

Taxonomic history

Status as species: Mayr, 1870b PDF: 980 (in key); Mayr, 1884 PDF: 34; Mayr, 1887 PDF: 589 (in key); Emery, 1890b PDF: 65; Dalla Torre, 1893 PDF: 88; Emery, 1894d PDF: 154; Forel, 1899b PDF: 64; Forel, 1908a PDF: 66; Forel, 1912g PDF: 222; Mann, 1916 PDF: 435; Wheeler, 1916c PDF: 5; Emery, 1922c PDF: 98; Wheeler, 1922e PDF: 6; Wheeler, 1925a: 21; Kempf, 1961b PDF: 502; Kempf, 1970c PDF: 330; Kempf, 1972b PDF: 187; Bolton, 1995b: 318; Wilson, 2003a: 143 (redescription); LaPolla & Cover, 2005 PDF: 371; Branstetter & Sáenz, 2012 PDF: 259; Bezděčková et al., 2015 PDF: 119; Longino, 2019 doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4599.1.1 PDF: 27; Serna et al., 2019 PDF: 926.Senior synonym of Pheidole bicolor: Wilson, 2003a: 143.Senior synonym of Pheidole biconstricta burtoni: Wilson, 2003a: 143.Senior synonym of Pheidole holmgreni festata: Wilson, 2003a: 143.Senior synonym of Pheidole holmgreni: Wilson, 2003a: 143.Senior synonym of Pheidole biconstricta hybrida: Wilson, 2003a: 143.Senior synonym of Pheidole inermis: Longino, 2019 doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4599.1.1 PDF: 27.Senior synonym of Pheidole radoszkowskii lallemandi: Wilson, 2003a: 143.Senior synonym of Pheidole rubicunda: Wilson, 2003a: 143.Senior synonym of Pheidole biconstricta surda: Wilson, 2003a: 143.Material of the unavailable names Pheidole biconstricta hybrida angustella, Pheidole biconstricta rubicunda fuscata, Pheidole biconstricta bicolor regina referred here by Wilson, 2003a: 143.