Pseudoneoponera Donisthorpe 1943
Creators: name: Eguchi, Katsuyuki
name: Viet, Bui Tuan
name: Yamane, Seiki
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2014
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Formicidae
Pseudoneoponera

description: Pseudoneoponera Donisthorpe, 1943a
Taxonomy. The genus Pseudoneoponera was synonymized with Bothroponera by Wilson (1958) and 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 Pseudoneoponera 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; body densly covered with short standing hairs; head and mesosoma coarsely sculptured, and abdominal tergite III strongly striate longitudinally; head in full-face view subrectangular; preoccipital carina conspicuous dorsally and laterally; frontal lobes horizontal, separated from each other just with a longitudinal sulcus; antennal scrobe absent; median portion of clypeus with a steep anterior face, with a pair of median carinae; anteromedian margin of clypeus convex, sometimes with an indistinct median point; mandible subtriangular, with ca. 8–10 teeth on masticatory margin (teeth often worn away); basal portion of mandible without a circular or near-circular pit or fovea dorsolaterally; antenna 12-segmented, gradually incrassate from segment III to XII; eye moderate in size, located before midlength of side of head in lateral view; mesosoma in lateral view straight or with a weakly convex dorsal outline; promesonotal suture completely separating pronotum from mesonotum; metanotal groove inconspisuous or absent; mesopleuron separated well from mesonotum and metapleuron with distinct sutures, sometimes divided by an inconspicuous transverse groove; propodeum unarmed; orifice of propodeal spiracle slit-like; propodeal lobe almost absent; apicoventral part of foretibia usually 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 in lateral view high and thick, in dorsal view semicircular; its posterodorsal margin with a row of small denticles;subpetiolar process developed, with anteroventral and posteroventral angles; girdling constriction between abdominal segments III and IV distinct; abdominal sternite III usually with a distinct anteroventral flange beneath helcium; sting well developed.
Differentiation. The worker of Pseudoneoponera most closely resembles Bothroponera, and to a lesser extent Ectomomyrmex, but in the latter two genera the posterodorsal margin of petiolar node lacks a row of small denticles, and the abdominal tergite III is not striate longitudinally.
Vietnamese species (2 spp.).
P. insularis (Emery, 1889). Zry (Cat Tien).
P. rufipes (Jerdon, 1851). Au (Ba Be, Chua Yen Tu, Pu Mat, Sa Pa, Van Ban), Rad (Cuc Phuong, nr. Ha Noi, Hoa Binh).
Bionomics. Pseudoneoponera rufipes usually occurs in wooded habitats.
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 40-41, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3860.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/287059