Abstract
A new species of termite, Macuxitermes colombicus Postle & Scheffrahn is described from soldiers and workers collected from Departamento Magdalena, Colombia. The soldier of Macuxitermes colombicus differs from its lone congener in having no protuberances on the head capsule.
Highlights
The Neotropical subfamily Syntermitinae (Isoptera: Termitidae)—“the mandibulate nasutes”—is composed of 18 genera whose distribution ranges from southern Mexico to northern Argentina
The new species was assigned to Macuxitermes after careful assessment and consideration of the morphological and anatomical data that have been assembled and reported on the component genera of Syntermitinae
Like M. triceratops, the head capsule of the soldier is endowed with fine microsculpture on the surface and the soldier and worker castes have notal spines, while the mandibles, mesenteric tongue and enteric valve of the workers match the descriptions of these structures in this species
Summary
The Neotropical subfamily Syntermitinae (Isoptera: Termitidae)—“the mandibulate nasutes”—is composed of 18 genera whose distribution ranges from southern Mexico to northern Argentina. Macuxitermes and Acangaobitermes soldiers possess a relatively long, slender nasus while that of Noirotitermes is short and broad. The pronotum of the former two genera is more-or-less saddle-shaped, yet has a clover-like appearance in Noirotitermes. Genera of Syntermitinae exhibit a wide variety of nest-building behaviour (Constantino 1991, Emerson 1952, Emerson and Banks 1965, Fontes 1985, Redford 1984, Scheffrahn 2010, Snyder 1922). The Macuxitermes group seems to fall into the latter category, Rocha et al (2012) suggest that these may be mound inquilines of other species
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