Euponera Forel 1891
Creators: name: Eguchi, Katsuyuki
name: Viet, Bui Tuan
name: Yamane, Seiki
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2014
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Formicidae
Euponera

description: Euponera Forel, 1891
Taxonomy. Euponera was established as a subgenus of Ponera, and raised to genus by Emery (1901a). It was then synonymized with Pachycondyla by Brown in Bolton (1994), and assigned to the tribe Ponerini (Bolton 2003). However, based on a recent molecular phylogenetic analysis (Schmidt 2013), Schmidt & Shattuck (2014) revived Euponera as an independent genus, and placed it under the Odontomachus genus group of the tribe Ponerini.
Morphology. Workers of Vietnamese species have the following features (see also Schmidt & Shattuck 2014):
Worker monomorphic; head in full-face view subrectangular; preoccipital carina absent dorsally; frontal lobes horizontal, separated from each other just with a longitudinal sulcus; antennal scrobe absent; median portion of clypeus with a median longitudinal ridge; anteromedian margin of clypeus roundly convex, but with a weak median emargination; mandible subtriangular, with ca. 8 teeth on masticatory margin; basal portion of mandible with a distinct pit dorsolaterally; antenna 12-segmented, gradually incrassate from segment III to XII; eye small to moderate in size, located on side of head close to mandibular insertion; mesosoma in lateral view usually with a straight or weakly convex dorsal outline; promesonotal suture completely separating pronotum from mesonotum; metanotal groove absent; mesopleuron separated well from mesonotum and metapleuron with distinct sutures, not divided by a transverse groove; propodeum unarmed; orifice of propodeal spiracle slit-like; propodeal lobe very low or almost absent; apicoventral part of foretibia with a small simple spur behind a large pectinate spur; apicoventral part of mid and hind tibiae with a simple spur in front of a large pectinate spur; outer surface of middle tibia with normal pilosity only; petiole without anterior peduncle; petiolar node squamiform, in lateral view high and relatively thick; subpetiolar process trapezoidal, without an anterior fenestra/fovea and a pair of teeth; girdling constriction between abdominal segments III and IV relatively distinct; abdominal sternite III usually with a distinct anteroventral flange beneath helcium; sting well developed.
Differentiation. The worker of Euponera is somewhat similar to that of the smaller species of Ectomomyrmex, but in the latter the basal portion of mandible lacks a pit dorsolaterally.
Vietnamese species (3 spp.).
E. grandis (Donisthorpe, 1947). Type locality: Yen Bay, Tonkin [Yen Bai, northern Vietnam]. E. sharpi (Forel, 1901). Rad (Ha Noi).
E. sp. eg-1 [cf. E pilosior (Wheeler)] (Tay Yen Tu).
Bionomics. No information.
description: Published as part of Eguchi, Katsuyuki, Viet, Bui Tuan & Yamane, Seiki, 2014, Generic Synopsis of the Formicidae of Vietnam (Insecta: Hymenoptera), Part II — Cerapachyinae, Aenictinae, Dorylinae, Leptanillinae, Amblyoponinae, Ponerinae, Ectatomminae and Proceratiinae, pp. 1-46 in Zootaxa 3860 (1) on pages 32-33, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3860.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/287059