Ponerinae Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau 1835
Creators: name: Boudinot, Brendon E.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2015
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Formicidae

description: Subfamily Ponerinae Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau, 1835
Figs 4C, 5H, 6B, D–E, I, 7D, 13E–F
Diagnosis
Ponerinae share the following characters: antennal toruli situated well-posterad anterior clypeal margin (except Dolioponera); at least 4 closed cells present on forewing (Dolioponera with 3); propodeal lobes usually present; jugal lobe usually present; petiolar tergum and sternum distinct; cinctus between abdominal pre- and posttergites IV usually present; and abdominal sternum IX unpronged and edentate. Three final sets of characters are required for identification: 1) (Platythyreini) mandibles triangular, tibial spur formula 2,2; 2) (Ponerini) mandibles spatulate, linear, or nub-like and mesonotum not anteriorly elongated; and 3) (Ponerini, Dolioponera) forewing with three closed cells, propodeal lobes present, antennal toruli situated at anterior extreme of head, oblique mesopleural sulcus absent, and cinctus present. The eighth abdominal tergum of male Ponerinae may be spiniform, a unique state among the Formicidae, but this character is not present in all genera and may be interspecifically variable. The spur formula of Ponerini is variable.
Comments
The Ponerinae is global in distribution and has recently been provided a molecular phylogeny (Schmidt 2013) and a global generic revision (Schmidt & Shattuck 2014), which did not treat males; the subfamily is now comprised of 47 valid genera. Males are unknown for 9 genera (Asphinctopone, Austroponera, Boloponera, Feroponera, Fisheropone, Iroponera, Loboponera, Odontoponera, Promyopias); the males of Belonopelta, Emeryopone, Myopias and Simopelta will be described in forthcoming publications (B. Boudinot in prep. and R.S. Probst et al. in prep.). The male of Dolioponera was discovered by the author during the review period of the present work.
Unlike the female castes, which have the lateral torular arch fused with the frontal carina (Bolton 2003), no single character was found to distinguish male Ponerinae from other subfamilies. The Platythyreini and Ponerini share numerous characteristics but are easier to key separately due to the informatively variable development of male mandibles. The Ponerini themselves are challenging to key as the males of some genera are highly derived, such as Simopelta, which lacks the mesopleural sulcus and the cinctus of abdominal segment III, and Dolioponera, which also lacks the mesopleural sulcus and has the antennal toruli situated near the anterior head margin. A polythetic definition of the Ponerini is thus required. Fortunately, some of the derived character states of the Ponerini also serve to distinguish them from the “generalized” ants, including the Formicinae and Dolichoderinae.
Yoshimura & Fisher (2007) and previously Yoshimura & Onoyama (2002) used the scutoscutellar sulcus and conformation of the mesopleural sulcus to diagnose the Ponerinae for the Malagasy and Japanese regions, respectively. These structures are variably developed on the global level, with several genera presenting unsculptured scutoscutellar sulci, and as noted above the mesopleural sulcus is not always present. In general, presence of the abdominal segment III cinctus is more stable than these sulci. Understanding the generic boundaries of male Ponerinae will be most difficult in the Afrotropics, where the most genera occur and where the least number of genera have males described. A key to the New World genera, including Ponerinae, is in the works (B. Boudinot, in prep.).
description: Published as part of Boudinot, Brendon E., 2015, Contributions to the knowledge of Formicidae (Hymenoptera, Aculeata): a new diagnosis of the family, the first global male-based key to subfamilies, and a treatment of early branching lineages, pp. 1-62 in European Journal of Taxonomy 120 on pages 47-48, DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2015.120, http://zenodo.org/record/3780152