Mycocepurus smithii
| Mycocepurus smithii | |
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| Specimen of Mycocepurus smithii | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Suborder: | Apocrita |
| Superfamily: | Vespoidea |
| Family: | Formicidae |
| Subfamily: | Myrmicinae |
| Tribe: | Attini |
| Genus: | Mycocepurus |
| Species: | M. smithii |
| Binomial name | |
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Mycocepurus smithii (Forel, 1893) |
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| Distribution of Mycocepurus smithii | |
Mycocepurus smithii is an attine fungus-growing ant from Latin America. While a widely reported study from 2009 claimed that the species consists exclusively of females which reproduce asexually a latter work in 2011 found evidence of sexual reproduction in some populations. In many colonies queen reproduces by parthenogenesis and all other ants in a colony are female clones of the queen. The ants cultivate a garden of fungus inside their colony grown with pieces of dead vegetables and other insects. It is this capacity for farming which initially prompted research into the species as a basal genus member would provide insight into the natural history of the fungal-cultivating ant tribe, Attini.
Ants of the genus Mycocepurus are distinctly recognizable for the crown-like cluster of horns on their promesonotum, the fused mesonotum and pronotum on the front of their alitrunk or midsection. M. smithii has sharp, protruding propodeal (posterior of the alitrunk) spines unlike M. obsoletus whose propodeal spines are blunt. Workers also do not have developed promesonotal spines in the center of their crown.
Foundress queens shed their wings prior to colony excavation either near the site or just inside. They then excavate a tunnel to a depth of roughly 10 cm (4 in) and create a primary chamber. The dealate queen then carries the wings into the primary chamber and inserts them into the chamber ceiling where the surface of the wings is used as a platform for growing an incipient fungal garden. The female fore wings of all three Attini basal genera (Mycocepurus, Apterostigma, and Myrmicocrypta) have a crescent-shaped spot lacking any veins or pigmentation, though the spot's functionality is unknown.
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