TY - JOUR
T1 - Taxonomic recovery of the ant cricket Myrmecophilus albicinctus from M. americanus (Orthoptera, Myrmecophilidae)
AU - Komatsu, Takashi
AU - Maruyama, Munetoshi
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI Grant Number 26.931 to TK.
Publisher Copyright:
© T. Komatsu, M. Maruyama.
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - Myrmecophilus americanus and M. albicinctus are typical myrmecophilous insects living inside ant nests. These species are ecologically important due to the obligate association with tramp ant species, including harmful invasive ant species. However, the taxonomy of these “white-banded ant crickets” is quite confused owing to a scarcity of useful external morphological characteristics. Recently, M. albicinctus was synonymized with M. americanus regardless of the apparent host use difference. To clarify taxonomical relationship between M. albicinctus and M. albicinctus, we reexamined morphological characteristics of both species mainly in the viewpoint of anatomy. Observation of genitalia parts, together with a few external body parts, revealed that M. albicinctus showed different tendency from them of M. americanus. Therefore, we recover M. albicinctus as a distinct species on the basis of the morphology.
AB - Myrmecophilus americanus and M. albicinctus are typical myrmecophilous insects living inside ant nests. These species are ecologically important due to the obligate association with tramp ant species, including harmful invasive ant species. However, the taxonomy of these “white-banded ant crickets” is quite confused owing to a scarcity of useful external morphological characteristics. Recently, M. albicinctus was synonymized with M. americanus regardless of the apparent host use difference. To clarify taxonomical relationship between M. albicinctus and M. albicinctus, we reexamined morphological characteristics of both species mainly in the viewpoint of anatomy. Observation of genitalia parts, together with a few external body parts, revealed that M. albicinctus showed different tendency from them of M. americanus. Therefore, we recover M. albicinctus as a distinct species on the basis of the morphology.
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U2 - 10.3897/zookeys.589.7739
DO - 10.3897/zookeys.589.7739
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84969132866
SN - 1313-2989
VL - 2016
SP - 97
EP - 106
JO - ZooKeys
JF - ZooKeys
IS - 589
ER -