Doronomyrmex pocahontas

Doronomyrmex pocahontas
Conservation status
Vulnerable (IUCN 2.3)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Hymenoptera
Family:	Formicidae
Subfamily:	Myrmicinae
Genus:	Doronomyrmex
Species:	D. pocahontas
Binomial name
Doronomyrmex pocahontas Buschinger, 1979
Synonyms
Leptothorax pocahontas

Doronomyrmex pocahontas (Latin: Doronomyrmex = Gift-Ant; Powhatan: pocahontas = playful one) is a threatened species of ant endemic to Alberta, Canada^[1], facing a high risk of extinction.

The total length of a female ant, including the mandibles is 4mm.^[1] The chromosome number of the species is n = 18.^[2]

The species is known only from its type locality^[2], Maligne Canyon, near Jasper, Alberta, Canada.^[1]

It closely resembles the workerless European species, Doronomyrmex pacis, and having believed to be also lacking a worker caste when it was first described in 1979, was placed in the same genus.^[1] However, unlike Doronomyrmex species it has been found to have workers and it is now doubtful that it ever acts as a social parasite^[2].

The queen is highly polymorphic, differing in size, pilosity, sculpture (shininess) and colouration. One form of the gynes resembles the queen of a Leptothorax ant species (a novel species, designated Leptothorax C), and the two may be the same, polymorphic species. Other hypotheses put forth are that the two are separate species which are able to hybridize, or that D. pocahontas is a hybrid of two or more Leptothorax (sensu stricto). It has been suggested by the researchers of D. pocahontas that the genus not be changed until the validity of the Doronmyrmex genus as a whole is understood.^[2]

Conservation status

The IUCN Red List lists the species as fitting the "D2" criteria of the Vulnerable (VU) category in the "1994 Categories & Criteria", meaning the population has an acute restriction in its area of occupancy (typically less than 100 km²) or in the number of locations (typically less than five). As such, the population is prone to the effects of human activities, or chance events and may become critically endangered or may even become extinct very suddenly. The last assessment of its extinction risk was published by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) in 1996.

Besides this species, three other species in the Doronomyrmex genus and four species in the Leptothorax genus are also threatened with extinction, all meeting the same D2 criteria for vulnerable species: D. goesswaldi (endemic to France and Switzerland), D. kutteri (Germany), D. pacis (Switzerland), L. buschingeri, L. duloticus, L. faberi, L. minutissimus.

There were a total of 142 threatened ant species, and 6 near threatened, listed by the IUCN in 2006.^[3]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Buschinger, A. 1979. Doronomyrmex pocahontas, n. sp., a parasitic ant from Alberta, Canada (Hym. Formicidae). Ins. Soc. 26: 216-222. [1]
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Buschinger, A. and J. Heinze. 1993. Doronomyrmex pocahontas: not a workerless parasite but still an enigmatic taxon (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Ins. Soc. 40: 423-432. [2]
3. ^ IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2006