Abstract
A new species of the cryptic and rarely collected ant genus Leptanilla is described. Leptanilla hypodracos sp. n. is the first Leptanilla recorded from Singapore in over a century since Leptanilla havilandi Forel, 1901 and represents the fourth species of Leptanilla known from the Malay Peninsula. An updated key to the Leptanilla of the Oriental region is presented. Taxonomic comparisons between Leptanilla hypodracos sp. n. and four morphologically similar species are provided with particular attention given to Leptanilla clypeata Yamane & Ito, 2001, for which new measurements and indices are presented. The first report is presented for the Leptanillinae subfamily from the southeastern part of China with a worker of the genus Leptanilla collected in Hong Kong. Finally, the potential of subterranean bait to collect Leptanilla species is discussed.
Highlights
Leptanillines are among the most rarely collected of ant subfamilies due to their minute size and hypogaeic life habits
Little information is available about the biology of Leptanilla species, they are believed to be specialist predators of geophilomorph centipedes based on observations of captive colonies of L. japonica Baroni Urbani, 1977 (Masuko 1990) as well as field observations of L. taiwanensis Ogata, Terayama & Masuko, 1995 (Ogata et al 1995)
We report on a Leptanilla worker collected from Hong Kong, which represents the first record of the Leptanillinae subfamily in southeastern China
Summary
Leptanillines are among the most rarely collected of ant subfamilies due to their minute size and hypogaeic life habits. Leptanillinae are widely distributed throughout the Old World and Australian regions, records of the various taxa are remarkably patchy (Antmaps 2015). This is most likely an artefact of a shortage of sampling efforts targeting hypogaeic ants in many regions. Based on current global distribution records, the Mediterranean region supports the highest diversity of Leptanilla species with a total of 17 species and contains by far the most species-rich countries, Tunisia (seven native species) and Spain (six native species) (Antmaps 2015). Many Leptanilla species have only been described from unassociated males collected in sweep nets and malaise traps (Ogata et al 1995), while the method proposed for effective collection of subterranean individuals – a combination of the lavage de terre and Burlese-Tullgren extraction with large amounts (40kg) of soil (Lopez et al 1994) – is relatively tedious and time-consuming
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