ASIAN MYRMECOLOGY Volume 7, 171 – 174, 2015

ISSN 1985-1944 © Brian L. Fisher, Benoit Guénard and Simon Robson

Borneo, fANTastique!
Brian L. Fisher1, Benoit Guénard2,3* and Simon Robson4
1

Department of Entomology, California Academy of Sciences, Golden Gate
Park, San Francisco, California 94118, U.S.A.
2
Okinawa Institute of Sciences and Technology, 1919-1 Tancha, Onna, Kunigami
District, Okinawa Prefecture 904-0495, Japan.
3
School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road,Hong Kong.
4
Centre for Tropical Biodiversity and Climate Change, College of Marine &Environmental Science, James Cook University Queensland 4811, Australia.
*Corresponding author’s e-mail: zeroben@gmail.com

Imagine that as a young student of myrmecology
you could be given the opportunity to learn andtalk about ants for ten full days; collect nightand day in luxuriant tropical forests almost
free of mosquitoes but not of leeches; attend
dynamic lectures on the latest developments
in ant taxonomy, systematics, biogeography,ecology, and behaviour of ants; and finally meetwith colleagues who are as passionate about ants
as you are. Sound like a dream? In fact, this wasthe reality for 30 students and 17 instructors whoattended the 14th edition of Ant Course. Thecourse was held this year (2014) from July 20thto July 31th in Maliau Basin, Sabah, in the coreof Borneo. Attendees hailed from 20 countries
and the six continents. Organizer Brian Fisher(California Academy of Sciences), with thesupport of Arthur Chung (Sabah BiodiversityCentre), Bakhtiar Yayha (Institute for Tropical
Biology and Conservation, University ofMalaysia) and Simon Robson (Centre for Tropical
Biodiversity & Climate Change, James CookUniversity), decided to explore the rich ant faunaof Borneo. The occasion marked the course’s
second run in Asia; Ant Course 2010 was held inDanum Valley, Sabah.
No fewer than six members of theANeT community were invited to participate
in the course as instructors (Table 1); all shared
their knowledge on Asian ants, demonstrating
the growing importance of the ANeT community
in this part of the world. Furthermore, theconvincing efforts of Simon Robson, aided by

all the wonders collected in the forest as wellas the generous happy hours, some 20 attendees
decided to join ANeT to support our common
endeavour of obtaining a better understanding of
Asian ants!
Borneo hosts 102 genera of ants
(Guénard et al. 2014), which left plenty ofopportunities for students to get a taste of theisland’s impressive ant biodiversity. With aworkforce of nearly 45 ant biologists, among
them some of the most skilled myrmecologists
in the world, a plethora of ants were collected.
It will probably require many years to sort allof the newly collected material to species level,
and even more time before those individuals
star in new publications and are showcased on
Antweb.org. However, a list of 88 genera canalready be presented here; this broad range ofsampled biodiversity reflects attendees’ intensecollection effort. As a result, two genera wererecorded for the first time (Pfeiffer et al. 2011,Guénard et al. 2014) in Borneo: Rhopalothrix andTyrannomyrmex.
Despite the fact that instructors andstudents alike beat the bushes and checked
their tuna-baited traps with diligent regularity, a
few genera remain unknown to the Ant Coursecrew. In a way, these omissions are extremely
fortunate, as they provide incentives for Ant
Course to return to Borneo for a third time. Given
the new field station facilities being built at theImbak Canyon Conservation Area, it would bewith great excitement and anticipation that course

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Brian L. Fisher, Benoit Guénard & Simon Robson

Fig. 1. Photo of the 2014 Antcourse participants in Maliau Basin Conservation Area.

participants would flock to the forests of Borneo
for another chance to learn about the wide worldof ants.

Table 1. List of students and instructors participating
to the AntCourse 2014. Members of ANeT invited asinstructors are marked with an *.
Students
Mohd AfifiPatrick Belenky
Doug Booher
Ian Butler
Anoop Das
Dario D’Eustacchio
Adam Devenish
Marie Madeleine Dieng
Ingrid Fetter Pruneda
Thomas Gabel
Timothy Golden
Muhammad Shafiq Hamdin

CountryMalaysia
United States
United States
United States
India
Italy
United KingdomSenegal
United States
United States
United States
Malaysia

Mickal Houadria
Cong Liu
Sharon Marsden
Brett Morgan
Musa Muchtar
Nichola Plowman
Rodolfo Probst
Jayanthi Puniamoorthy
Thibault Ramage
Jignasha Rana
Hasrin Rossleykho
Tze Min Teo
Fiona ThomsonJiří TůmaFabian Westermann
Yannick Wurm
Mika Yasuda
Mohd Afif Zakaria
InstructorsHimender Bharti*
Arthur Chung*GermanyJapan
Australia
United States
Malaysia
Czech Republic
BrazilSingapore
FranceUnited States
Malaysia
Malaysia
New ZealandCzech Republic
New ZealandEngland
China
Malaysia
CountryIndia
Malaysia

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Borneo, fANTastique!

Flavia Esteves
Brian Fisher
Dave General
Benoit Guénard*
Roberto Keller
Laurent Keller
Jack Longino
Corrie Moreau
Christian Peeters*
Simon Robson*
Eli Sarnat
Steve Shattuck
Andy Suarez
Walter Tschinkel
Phil Ward
Bakhtiar Yahya*

United States
United States
Philippines
Japan
Portugal
Switzerland
United States
United States
FranceAustralia
United States
Australia
United States
United States
United StatesMalaysia

Leptanillinae
Myrmicinae

Table 2. Preliminary List of Genera collected in Maliau
Basin Conservation area. * represents new genericrecord for Borneo island.
Subfamily
Amblyoponinae

Dolichoderinae

Dorylinae

Ectatomminae
Formicinae

Genus
Myopopone
MystriumPrionopelta
Stigmatomma
Chronoxenus
Dolichoderus
Iridomyrmex
Loweriella
Philidris
TapinomaTechnomyrmex
Aenictus
Cerapachys
DorylusGnamptogenys
Acropyga
Anoplolepis
Camponotus
Cladomyrma
Echinopla
Euprenolepis
Gesomyrmex

Ponerinae

Myrmoteras
Nylanderia
Oecophylla
Paraparatrechina
Plagiolepis
Polyrhachis
Pseudolasius
ProtanillaAcanthomyrmex
Aphaenogaster
Calyptomyrmex
Cardiocondyla
Carebara
Cataulacus
Crematogaster
Dacetinops
Dilobocondyla
Epelysidris
Eurhopalothrix
Gauromyrmex
Liomyrmex
Lophomyrmex
Lordomyrma
Mayriella
Meranoplus
Monomorium
Myrmecina
Myrmicaria
Paratopula
Pheidole
Pristomyrmex
Proatta
Recurvidris
Rhopalomastix
Rhopalothrix*
Solenopsis
Strumigenys
Syllophopsis
Tetramorium
Tyrannomyrmex*
Vollenhovia
Vombisidris
Anochetus
Brachyponera

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Brian L. Fisher, Benoit Guénard & Simon Robson

Proceratiinae

Pseudomyrmecinae

Buniapone
Centromyrmex
Cryptopone
Diacamma
Ectomomyrmex
EuponeraHarpegnathos
Hypoponera
Leptogenys
Mesoponera
Myopias
Odontomachus
Odontoponera
Parvaponera
Platythyrea
PoneraPseudoneoponera
Pseudoponera
Discothyrea
Probolomyrmex
Proceratium
Tetraponera

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank Prof. E.O. Wilson
for his continued guidance and support from the
Arthur Lawrence Green Memorial Fund, Museumof Comparative Zoology, Harvard University.
The authors would like to honor thememory of Dario D’Eustacchio, student at the
Antcourse who tragically passed away on October
14th 2014. He will be sincerely missed.

REFERENCESGuénard B, Weiser MD and Dunn RR, 2014. Ant
genera of the World. Available from http://robdunnlab.com/antgenera/Pfeiffer M, Mezger D, Hosoichi S, Yahya BE andKohout RJ, 2011. The Formicidae of Borneo(Insecta: Hymenoptera): A preliminary
species list. Asian Myrmecology 4: 9 – 58.

ASIAN MYRMECOLOGY
A Journal of the International Network for the Study of Asian Ants
Communicating Editor: Adam L. Cronin