Solenopsis striata

Longino, 1 Mar 2014: This species inhabits montane wet and moist forest. On the Barva transect, it was commonly collected in Winkler and Berlese samples from the 500m and 1100m sites, yet has not been collected at the 300m site or La Selva. In the southern Pacific lowlands I have collections from a 500m site in Carara Biological Reserve and at 20m elevation near Ciudad Neily. It is also common in Winkler samples from the upper Peñas Blancas Valley. Although most collections are from Winkler samples, it has occasionally been collected beneath epiphytes in treefalls. I found an extensive colony with abundant alate queens and males in a small rainforest clearing, under a moss mat at the base of a small tree. Another collection was from Estacion Los Llanos near Santa Elena de Monteverde, a moist forest site on the Pacific slope; a worker was under a stone.

Yellow to somewhat bicolored, with light-colored head and mesosoma, darker gaster; clypeal carinae weakly diverging, projecting to form pronounced anterior teeth; mandible with four teeth, basal tooth well developed so that mandible has differentiated masticatory and basal margins; promesonotum and dorsal face of propodeum more or less in same plane, metanotal groove a narrow notch; katepisternum very finely striated, shagreened.

Solenopsis striata Pacheco & Mackay, 2013 PDF: 301, figs. 278-279, map 68 (w.) COSTA RICA. Neotropic. Primary type information: Holotype w (MCZC) COSTA RICA, Guanacaste, Pitilla Field Station, 600 - 1175m, 2-v-1996 or 14-ii-1998, R. Anderson AntCat AntWiki