Misplaced Pages

Polyrhachis gracilior
A worker (from the Western Ghats)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Hymenoptera
Family:	Formicidae
Subfamily:	Formicinae
Genus:	Polyrhachis
Subgenus:	Myrmhopla
Species:	P. gracilior
Binomial name
Polyrhachis gracilior Forel, 1893

Polyrhachis gracilior is a species of ant found in the southwest and northeast India. It is one of the few ants that build arboreal nests made of leaves stitched together using silk produced by their larvae.

Originally described as a "race" of Polyrhachis furcata, it was elevated to a full species by C T Bingham who noted differences in the shape of the spines. A species described from Travancore as weberi by Horace Donisthorpe in 1943, was identified as being identical to gracilior by Barry Bolton.

• With a larva
• Nest between leaves

References

1. Gaume, Laurence; Megha Shenoy; Merry Zacharias & Renee M. Borges (2006). "Co-existence of ants and an arboreal earthworm in a myrmecophyte of the Indian Western Ghats: anti-predation effect of the earthworm mucus" (PDF). Journal of Tropical Ecology. 22 (3): 341–344. doi:10.1017/S0266467405003111. S2CID 86520579.
2. Bingham, CT (1903). The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma. Hymenoptera. Volume 2. Taylor and Francis, London. p. 388.
3. Bolton B (1974). "New synonymy and a new name in the ant genus Polyrhachis F. Smith (Hym., Formicidae)". Entomologist's Monthly Magazine. 109: 172–180.

External links

• Media related to Polyrhachis gracilior at Wikimedia Commons

• v
• t
• e

• Formicinae
• Insects described in 1893
• Hymenoptera of Asia
• Formicinae stubs