Ancyridris

Ancyridris
A. polyrhachioides worker
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Hymenoptera
Family:	Formicidae
Subfamily:	Myrmicinae
Tribe:	Crematogastrini
Genus:	Ancyridris Wheeler, 1935
Type species
Ancyridris polyrhachioides Wheeler, 1935
Species
A. polyrhachioides Wheeler, 1935 A. rupicapra (Stitz, 1938)
Diversity [1]
2 species

Ancyridris is a small genus of myrmicine ants, with only two described species from New Guinea.

Description

A. polyrhachioides worker:
a) Lateral view
b) Head, dorsal view
c) Thorax and abdomen, dorsal view

The eyes are well developed. The long and narrow mesosoma is shaped somewhat as in Aphaenogaster . The propodeum bears two long, flattened, hooked spines resembling those of Polyrhachis bihamata . On the pronotum there are long hairs. The worker of A. polyrhachioides is almost 6 mm long. Apart from the curious anchor-like spines on its propodeum, Ancyridris bears a general resemblance to Aphaenogaster or certain worker forms of Pheidole . Wheeler suspected some aberrant or archaic group, "another of the living fossils which are continually turning up in the Papuan and Australian Regions". ^[2] Ancyridris in fact seems close to Lordomyrma . It is the only ant genus currently thought to be endemic to the island of New Guinea.^{[ citation needed ]}

A. rupicapra was originally described in the genus Pheidole (Pheidolacanthinus). Its workers are 4 mm long. ^[3] A. polyrhachioides is black, and A. rupicapra reddish-brown (as implied by its specific epithet which translates as "red goat", referring as well to the goat-horn like propodeal spines. The sole known rupicapra specimen was collected in the mountains of the Sepik River catchment by the German colonial Kaiserin Augustafluss Expedition (1912–13).^{[ citation needed ]}

The two original type specimens of A. polyrhachioides were recovered somewhat damaged from the stomach of an eastern blue-grey robin (Peneothello cyanus subcyaneus) ^[4] which was caught on Mount Misim in the Morobe District of New Guinea. ^[2]

Name

The genus name is derived from the Ancient Greek ἄγκυρα "anchor" with the suffix of ant genera -idris , ^{[2] [5]} which comes from the Greek word ἴδρις (ídris) "knowledgeable". ^{[6] [7]}

References

1. Bolton, B. (2014). "Ancyridris". AntCat. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
2. Wheeler, William Morton (1935). "Two new genera of Myrmicine ants from Papua and the Philippines" (PDF). Proceedings of the New England Zoological Club. 15 (1): 1. Retrieved 27 April 2025.
3. Stitz, H. (1938): Neue Ameisen aus dem indo-malayischen Gebiet ["New ants from the Indo-Malayan region"] [Article in German]. Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin1938: 99-122. PDF fulltext
4. "Poecilodryas cyanea subcyanea" in Wheeler (1935) is a lapsus - though placed in Poecilodryas at that time, the specific epithet was cyana.
5. Wheeler, George C. (1956). Myrmecological orthoepy and onomatology. Grand Forks: University of North Dakota Press. p. 4. Retrieved 27 April 2025.
6. Beall, E.F. (2001). "Notes on Hesiod's Works and Days". American Journal of Philology . 122 (2): 166–167.
7. In a verse by Hesiod ( Works and Days , 778): ὅτε τ'ἴδρις σωρὸν αμᾶται, "while the experienced one gathers a heap", many philologists, but not all, interpret ἴδρις as a metaphor for "ant," probably Messor barbarus or M. structor  [ fr ] according to Wheeler.

External links

• Media related to Ancyridris at Wikimedia Commons
• AntWeb: Pictures of Ancyridris species