Myrmecol. News 12: 97-108; printable
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.25849/myrmecol.news_012:097
- Open Access: CC BY 4.0
- Year: 2009
- Title: Worldwide spread of the destroyer ant, Monomorium destructor (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)
- Journal: Myrmecological News
- Volume: 12
- Pages: 97-108
- Type of contribution: Original Article
- Supplementary material: No
- Abstract: The destroyer ant, Monomorium destructor (Jerdon, 1851), is a pest in many tropical and subtropical areas, where it is notorious for chewing through the insulation of electrical wires, living in and destroying electrical equipment, and attacking people. To evaluate the spread of M. destructor, I compiled published and unpublished specimen records from > 600 sites worldwide. I documented the earliest known M. destructor records for 107 geographic areas (countries, island groups, major Caribbean islands, and Us states), including many locales for which I found no previously published records: Bahamas, Barbados, Barbuda, Bonaire, Comoro Islands, Curaçao, Grenada, Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Nevis, Pakistan, Réunion, St. Lucia, St. Martin, St. Vincent, Tobago, and Venezuela. Monomorium destructor most closely resembles several African Monomorium species, and has a seemingly continuous distribution from North Africa to Southeast Asia, suggesting M. destructor originated in North Africa, but is also native to the Middle East and South Asia. Monomorium destructor is most common as a pest in disturbed arid and semi-arid habitats in the tropics and subtropics. Outbreaks of M. destructor often appear to be fairly localized and short-lived. This pattern of population explosion followed by decline should be taken into consideration in any large-scale efforts to control these ants.
- Key words: Biogeography, biological invasion, exotic species, Formicidae, invasive species.
- Publisher: The Austrian Society of Entomofaunistics
- ISSN: Print: 1994-4136 - Online: 1997-3500