Nylanderia
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Nylanderia Temporal range: 42–0 Ma Middle Eocene – Recent |
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| Nylanderia vividula worker | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Formicidae |
| Subfamily: | Formicinae |
| Tribe: | Plagiolepidini |
| Genus: |
Nylanderia Emery, 1906 |
| Type species | |
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Formica vividula Nylander, 1846 |
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| Diversity | |
| 110 species | |
| Synonyms | |
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Andragnathus Emery, 1922 |
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Andragnathus Emery, 1922
Nylanderia is a large genus of ants in the subfamily Formicinae. The genus has a nearly cosmopolitan distribution with species inhabiting a wide array of habitats in almost all geographic regions. Nylanderia, currently containing over 110 species, is an ecologically important genus, with some species reported as being invasive. The ants are small to medium in size and range in color from pale yellow to black.
The genus was first described as a subgenus of Prenolepis by Emery (1906), a status he revised a couple of years later when he placed it as subgenus of Paratrechina (Emery, 1925).Wheeler (1936) raised Nylanderia to genus, where it remained until Brown (1973) provisionally placed it as a junior synonym of Paratrechina, a status which was later confirmed by Trager (1984).Nylanderia was finally revived from synonymy and restored at the rank of genus by LaPolla, Brady & Shattuck (2010).
Until 2010, most Nylanderia species were placed in the genus Paratrechina, but molecular phylogenic studies and reassessment of morphological characters prompted resurrection of Nylanderia as a valid genus. The genus currently comprises over 108 extant species and two fossil species:N. pygmaea from Eocene age Baltic amber and N. vetula from Miocene age Dominican amber.
After examining the phylogenetic relationships of Nylanderia and related genera, LaPolla, Brady & Shattuck (2011) placed Nylanderia within a well-defined Prenolepis-genus group containing Euprenolepis, Nylanderia, Paratrechina (sensu stricto), Paraparatrechina, Prenolepis, and Pseudolasius. They found that Paratrechina (sensu lato) was polyphyletic and segregated into three distinct, robust clades: Paratrechina (sensu stricto), Paraparatrechina, and Nylanderia. The sister taxon to Nylanderia was found to be a clade containing three genera: (Pseudolasius + (Euprenolepis + Paratrechina)).
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