Nesomyrmex pittieri (Forel)

Pazmiño-Palomino, Alex, Troya, Adrián & Arredondo, Brandon S., 2025, Nesomyrmex paquisha: a new rough tree ant species from the isolated Cordillera del Cóndor, Ecuador, Journal of Natural History 59 (17 - 20), pp. 1181-1208 : 1194-1195

Nesomyrmex pittieri (Forel)

( Figures 6 , 9 )

Material examined

ECUADOR: 1 ☿; Esmeraldas, Reserva Ecológica Cotacachi Cayapas, Charco Vicente, 5 km from San Miguel ; 0.6960°N, 78.910°W; 230 m; 01 April 1991; P . Araujo et al. leg.; canopy fogging; MEPN 4690 .

Comments

Workers of N. pittieri are identified by the following combination of characters: dorsal surface of the head foveate, antennal scapes curved at their base, not reaching the posterior margin of head, propodeal spines as long as the distance between their apices, and 12 antennomeres. Kempf mentions that within the populations of the species he reviewed variations can be observed in petiole shape, subpetiolar process, and the number of tubercles of the petiolar node. But he expressed that the variations found do not pose a problem when identifying the species ( Kempf 1959).

Ecuadorian specimens examined have a mixed colouration between yellowish and brownish, and showed variation in colour as compared to specimens from other countries. This new record corresponds to collections in the pristine Chocó biome rainforests of north-western Ecuador using the canopy fogging method. This species is distributed across Mexico, Central America and Colombia ( Table 1), and our record expands its known distribution by more than 250 km to the south of the closest record in Colombia ( Guénard et al. 2017).

Figures

Figure 6. Nesomyrmex pittieri (Forel). (A) frontal view; (B) dorsal view; (C) lateral view. Scale bars = 1 mm. Images by B. Arredondo.

Figure 9. Distribution of Nesomyrmex paquisha sp. n. and new Nesomyrmex species records in Ecuador. Image by the authors.