Tetraponera rufonigra ( 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 : 140

publication ID	https://doi.org/10.20362/am.015006
DOI	https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15474667
persistent identifier	https://treatment.plazi.org/id/03B68783-31DE-FF2E-FF0F-7AE3FE56F9F7
treatment provided by	Felipe
scientific name	Tetraponera rufonigra ( Jerdon, 1851 )
status

Treatment

Tetraponera rufonigra ( Jerdon, 1851) View in CoL

Material examined. Choa Chu Kang Avenue 2, 1 Mar 2017, D.J. Court leg., ZRC _ HYM_0001725; Jurong Lake Gardens , 29 Nov 2018, H.H. Tan leg., ZRC _ ENT00007632 View Materials ; Jurong mangroves, 7 Nov 1976, D.H. Murphy leg., ZRC _HYM_0000912; Kranji Road, 1.42638, 103.75413, Sep-Nov 2016, G.W. Yong leg., ZRC _HYM_0001639- 1640; Seletar, 20 Dec 1982, D.H. Murphy leg., ZRC _HYM_00000802-805; University Campus, Jan 1977, D.H. Murphy leg., ZRC _ HYM_0000806 GoogleMaps .

Material not physically examined. Queens, males, and workers, CASENT0796770-796774, tc1162117908/PSW09580 ( PSWC).

Literature. Viehmeyer (1916), Overbeck (1924) [both as Sima rufonigra ]; Ward (2001).

Localities. Bukit Timah Nature Reserve; Choa Chu Kang; Jurong Lake Gardens; Jurong mangroves; Kranji Road; Mandai; Seletar; University Campus (either Bukit Timah or Clementi/ Kent Ridge) .

Habitat/Ecology. This species was found in a broad range of habitats in Singapore, including mangroves and degraded or heavily modified environments such as urban parklands, gardens and semi-urban waste woodland secondary forests. Individuals were frequently collected from flowering shrubs on granite and tree trunks. The species typically nests in cavities of both dead and living wood. In mangroves, a colony was found occupying live beetle-bored branches of Sonneratia ovata , the nest cavities expanded into the bole of the tree. On one occasion, the ants were found predating on Pomacea (apple snail) egg masses on wooden stakes supporting planted trees near the edge of a man-made water body, in urban parkland. Workers of the species are known to be behaviourally aggressive and retaliatory when provoked.