Basiceros conjugans Brown 1974

Basiceros conjugans Brown, 1974 Materials Type status: Other material. Occurrence: catalogNumber: LEUA- 00000061876; recordedBy: Kenna Martinez; individualCount: 1; sex: female; occurrenceID: 3B19C356-7EE5-5CC2-A416-A90295DCA2B1; Taxon: scientificName: Basiceros conjugans; kingdom: Animalia; phylum: Arthropoda; class: Insecta; order: Hymenoptera; family: Formicidae; genus: Basiceros; specificEpithet: conjugans; scientificNameAuthorship: Brown, 1974; Location: continent: South America; country: Colombia; countryCode: CO; stateProvince: Caquetá; county: Florencia; locality: Vda. La Paz, Fca. El Jardín; verbatimElevation: 640 m; locationRemarks: Collected in leaf Litter; verbatimCoordinates: 01°43'39.7"N 75°37'11.5"W; verbatimCoordinateSystem: WGS 84; Event: samplingProtocol: Monolite / TSBF; eventDate: 2023-02-20; Record Level: language: es; collectionID: RNC: 270; institutionCode: Universidad de la Amazonia (UDLA); basisOfRecord: PreservedSpecimen Diagnosis This species is recognised within the genus Basiceros Schulz, 1906 by the following characteristics: head almost as broad as long, occipital lobes rounded with the relatively straight with a narrow mesal concavity, without presence of continuous crest; petiolar node and postpetiole completely covered with dense pilosity; petiolar node well developed and, in dorsal view, sub-rectangular; petiole with ventral carina with many developed teeth, of different shapes; first gastral tergite with few specialised hairs on its most posterior margin, those longer than basilar pilosity (Fig. 6). Distribution This species has few records in the country, limited to the Departments of Amazonas, Meta and Nariño (Probst and Brandão 2022). It is recorded here for the first time in the Department of Caquetá. In the Neotropical Region, the species has also been recorded in Ecuador, Peru and Brazil (Probst and Brandão 2022). Biology This species was collected in leaf litter in the Río Hacha Basin. Additionally, it was collected on a log in leaf litter in cloud forest, although only one worker was observed. Probst and Brandão (2022) suggest that B. conjugans feeds on dead arthropods. Furthermore, it is thought that they may prey on termites, a behaviour observed in other species of the genus.