Trichomyrmex destructor ( Jerdon, 1851 )

Hamer, Matthew T., Lee, Jonathan Hon Chung, Tse, Cheung Yau Leo, Silva, Thiago S. R. & Guénard, Benoit, 2022, Remarkable diversity in a little red dot: a comprehensive checklist of known ant species in Singapore (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) with notes on ecology and taxonomy, Asian Myrmecology (e 015006) 15, pp. 1-152 : 112

publication ID	https://doi.org/10.20362/am.015006
DOI	https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15474491
persistent identifier	https://treatment.plazi.org/id/03B68783-313A-FFCA-FF0F-789CFDAFF957
treatment provided by	Felipe
scientific name	Trichomyrmex destructor ( Jerdon, 1851 )
status

Treatment

Trichomyrmex destructor ( Jerdon, 1851) View in CoL

Material examined. None available (but see Remarks).

Material not physically examined. In Wetterer (2009) – 1899, Haviland ( BMNH). ANIC 32- 061821, Shattuck1345379064 ( ANIC).

Literature. Wetterer (2009).

Localities. Unknown.

Habitat/Ecology. Uncertain in the Singapore context, but presumably in and around man-made infrastructure in urban and semi-urban areas, based on anecdotal observations.

Remarks. Commonly known as ‘the Singapore ant’, T. destructor is an infamous worldwide cosmopolitan pest species that appears to not be as locally ubiquitous as is suggested by its common name. It is presumably native to the Palearctic region ( Wetterer 2015). The species is probably underrepresented in the ZRC – wholly in uncatalogued, unsorted material (W. Wang, pers. obs.). There have been past occasional anecdotal reports of the pest ant causing damage to man-made infrastructure, such as chewing through electrical wiring in urban buildings, but species identities of the reported ants have not been validated. In Bolton (1987), the locality of material supposedly collected from Singapore was indicated as ‘Sabang’ – which may actually be a city or town located in Indonesia or Malaysia, but does not exist in Singapore.