Paratrechina longicornis
Authors/Creators
- 1. Department of Plant Protection, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; & Division of Invertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA;
- 2. Wilkes Honors College, Florida Atlantic University, Jupiter, FL, USA;
- 3. Agriculture Affairs, Ministry of Municipalities Affairs and Agriculture, Kingdom of Bahrain;
- 4. Section of Zoology-Marine Biology and Zoological Museum, Department of Biology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece;
- 5. Research Laboratory of Biogeography and Wildlife Parasitology (RLBWP), Department of Entomology, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Abbassia, Egypt
- 6. Department of Plant Protection, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia;
Description
Paratrechina longicornis (Latreille, 1802)
(Figure 17)
Formica longicornis Latreille, 1802, p. 113 (w.), Senegal. Afrotropic.
Diagnosis
Worker. Head, mesosoma, petiole and gaster dark brown to black-brown; body with feeble bluish iridescence; body slightly small (TL 2.30–3.00 mm); scapes exceptionally long, when laid back from their insertions surpassing posterior margin of head by at least one-half its length; eyes close to posterior margin of head; legs extraordinarily long; body with long, stout, scattered, suberect to erect, greyish or whitish setae.
Material examined. Twelve sites: 4; 9; 10; 13; 15; 17; 23; 25; 27; 28; 29; 30.
Geographic range. Paratrechina longicornis, of African or Asian origin, has a remarkable capacity to invade a diversity of disturbed habitats, making it one of the most successful invasive species worldwide throughout the tropics and subtropics, in both the northern and southern hemispheres (Wetterer 2008). It has been found in all countries of the Arabian Peninsula: the KSA (Collingwood 1985; Sharaf et al. 2023), the UAE (Collingwood et al. 1997, 2011), Oman (Collingwood 1985), Yemen (Collingwood and Agosti 1996), Kuwait (unpublished data) and Qatar (Wetterer 2008).
Ecology and biology. This species nests in both dry and humid habitats, in trash, plants, rotten wood, and soil (Smith 1965), and under stones in irrigated public gardens, parks, and date palm plantations (Sharaf et al. 2017); it also thrives in greenhouses, zoos, highly disturbed human-modified habitats like piles of trash, or in leaf bases of palm trees (Deyrup 2017), in coastal human-impacted sites where debris and human detritus exist (Jaffe 1993), and indoors, frequently in wall voids and under carpets (Hedges 1997). It is a general scavenger; some dead workers of the genera Camponotus and Pheidole were observed inside the nest. It is also fond of sugary material and also tends honeydewproducing mealybugs and scale insects (Smith 1965; Wetterer et al. 1999). For more details on habitats and biology see Klotz et al. (2008) and Sharaf et al. (2017).
Notes
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Linked records
Additional details
Identifiers
Biodiversity
- Scientific name authorship
- Latreille
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Arthropoda
- Order
- Hymenoptera
- Family
- Formicidae
- Genus
- Paratrechina
- Species
- longicornis
- Taxon rank
- species
- Taxonomic concept label
- Paratrechina longicornis (Latreille, 1802) sec. Sharaf, Wetterer, Mohamed, Georgiadis, Nasser & Aldawood, 2024
References
- Latreille PA. 1802. Histoire naturelle generale et particuliere des Crustaces et des insectes. Tome 3. Familles naturelles des genres. Vol. xii +. Paris: F. Dufart; p. 467. doi: 10.5962 / bhl. title. 15764.
- Wetterer JK. 2008. Worldwide spread of the longhorn crazy ant, Paratrechina longicornis (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Myrmecol News. 11: 137 - 149.
- Collingwood CA. 1985. Hymenoptera: fam. Formicidae of Saudi Arabia. Fauna Saudi Arabia. 7: 230 - 302. doi: 10.5281 / zenodo. 26692.
- Sharaf MR, Salman S, Aldawood AS. 2023. Additions to the ant fauna of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), with an updated list of the Saudi species. Ann Zool. 73: 195 - 214. doi: 10.3161 / 00034541 ANZ 2023.73.2.005.
- Collingwood CA, Tigar BJ, Agosti D. 1997. Introduced ants in the United Arab Emirates. J Arid Environ. 37 (3): 505 - 512. doi: 10.1006 / jare. 1997.0309.
- Collingwood CA, Agosti D, Sharaf MR, van Harten A. 2011. Order Hymenoptera, family Formicidae. Arthropod Fauna UAE. 4: 405 - 474. doi: 10.5281 / zenodo. 1168586.
- Collingwood CA, Agosti D. 1996. Formicidae (Insecta: Hymenoptera) of Saudi Arabia (part 2). Fauna Saudi Arabia. 15: 300 - 385.
- Smith MR. 1965. House-infesting ants of the eastern United States: their recognition, biology, and economic importance. U S Dep Agr Tech Bull. 1326: 1 - 105. doi: 10.22004 / ag. econ. 171244.
- Sharaf MR, Fisher BL, Collingwood CA, Aldawood AS. 2017. Ant fauna (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of the Socotra Archipelago (Yemen): zoogeography, distribution and description of a new species. J Nat Hist. 51 (5 - 6): 317 - 378. doi: 10.1080 / 00222933.2016.1271157.
- Deyrup MA. 2017. Ants of Florida: identification and natural history. Boca Raton (FL): CRC Press; p. 423. doi: 10.1201 / 9781315368023.
- Jaffe K. 1993. Surfing ants. Florida Entomologist. 76 (1): 182 - 183. doi: 10.2307 / 3496029.
- Hedges SA. 1997. Handbook of pest control. In: Chapter 12: ants. 18 th ed. Cleveland (Ohio): Mallis Handbook and Technical Training Co; p. 503 - 589.
- Wetterer JK, Miller SE, Wheeler DE, Olson CA, Polhemus DA, Pitts M, Ashton IW, Himler AG, Yospin MM, Helms KR, et al. 1999. Ecological dominance by Paratrechina longicornis (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) an invasive tramp ant, in Biosphere 2. Florida Entomol. 82 (3): 381 - 388. doi: 10.2307 / 3496865.
- Klotz J, Hansen L, Pospischil R, Rust M. 2008. Urban ants of North America and Europe: identification, biology, and management. Comstock Publishing Associates. Ithaca (New York): Cornell University Press; p. 196.