A rare ant species

Two new species of a rare ant genus have been discovered in India. The species of the ant genus Ooceraea found in Kerala, and Tamil Nadu add to the diversity of this rare genus. They differ from others of the same genus on the basis of the number of antennal segments.

Key Points

• The newly discovered ant species of the Ooceraea genus differ from others in the genus by the number of antennal segments.
• One of the two ant species has been named Ooceraea joshii. This species was found in Kerala’s Periyar Tiger Reserve.
• The name Ooceraea joshii has been given in the honor of Prof. Amitabh Joshi.
• Amitabh Joshi is a biologist from Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR).
• JNCASR is an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology (DST).
• The two new ant species are the first species that have ten-segmented antennae in the genus.
• They were spotted by a team led by Punjabi University’s Prof. Himender Bharti.
• At present, Ooceraea genus has 14 species and out of this, 8 species have nine-segmented antennae, while 5 have eleven- segmented antennae and 1 species has eight-segmented antennae.
• There are two species of the genus in India so far; one with nine-segmented antennae and the other with eleven-segmented antennae.
• The findings of the discovery of the new ant species have been published in the ZooKeys journal.