Bothroponera pumicosa: the Rugged Ringbum ant

PONERINAE

Bothroponera pumicosa (Roger, 1860): 
the Rugged ringbum ant







Very hairy ants with deeply pitted ‘skin’; hairs golden. Slow moving, they tend to hunt singly from small colonies of a few dozen individuals, with ergatoid queens [Wikipedia says: An ergatoid (from Greek ergat-, "worker" + -oid, "like") is a wingless reproductive adult ant, anatomically intermediate in form between workers and winged queens or males.]
They have powerful stings and should be handled with care!
The nests are shallow, generally under stones. A widely-distributed species, from the Cape to Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Cameroun.

Some photos of the species are at:
www.ispotnature.org/node/647610
www.ispotnature.org/node/478552

This genus used to be lumped with Pachycondyla, but has recently been separated; see
Schmidt, C. A.; Shattuck, S. O. 2014. The Higher Classification of the Ant Subfamily Ponerinae (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), with a Review of Ponerine Ecology and Behavior. Zootaxa 3817(1):1-242. PDF 142616
News of the revision is at http://www.myrmecos.net/2014/06/18/


Arnold’s taxonomic description of the species is at
http://antsofafrica.org/ant_species_2012/pachycondyla/pachycondyla_pumicosa/pachycondyla_bothroponera_pumicosa_arnold1915.jpg

Survive invasive species:
Linepithema humile       : Argentine ants       : No
Pheidole megacephala  : House ants            : unknown
Lepisiota sp.                  : Small Black ants    : unknown
Technomyrmex albipes : White-footed ants  : unknown
Anoplolepis gracilipes   : Yellow Crazy ants  : unknown

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