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New Ant Genera from Madagascar: Aptinoma & Ravavy

By awild on May 28, 2009.
Aptinoma antongil Fisher 2009

Aptinoma antongil Fisher 2009

Brian Fisher has a paper out in Zootaxa this week describing a pair of new ant genera from Madagascar.  Aptinoma and Ravavy are small ants in the subfamily dolichoderinae related to Tapinoma and Technomyrmex.  Apparently, the backstory on these new ants is that ongoing genetic research from the Ant Tree of Life project revealed some Malagasy specimens to be rather distantly related to any of the previously described genera.  On closer morphological inspection, Fisher found several differences that allow for the new genera to be reliably diagnosed.

Yet another illustration that the more we look, the more biological diversity we find.

source: Fisher, B. L. 2009. Two new dolichoderine ant genera from Madagascar: Aptinoma gen. n. and  Ravavy gen. n. (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Zootaxa  2118: 37-52.

Tags
ants
Science
aptinoma
madagascar
Myrmecology

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