Pheidole tysoni Forel 1901

Habitat: In fields with sandy soil, dry fields generally, sand or sandstone prairie, savanna or woodland. P. tysoni nests in soil with little evidence on the surface of their presence. I also have collections of P. tysoni from a sandy midstrip of a little-used, chert gravel road, and from a silty clay, compacted-soil area adjacent to a rock parking area.

Natural History: I have long suspected the small, yellowish P. tysoni lives a mainly subterranean existence, perhaps cultivating subterranean aphids or mealy bugs, and one observation in a sandy prairie in southwest Missouri supports this latter part. It has also been captured in buried, meat-baited traps in a sandy prairie in southwestern Missouri. On the other hand, Stefan Cover (in Wilson, 2003) reports it foraging and tending aphids above ground in Arizona.

collected from the Chiricahua Mtns, Cochise Co.

Pheidole tysoni Forel, 1901j PDF: 348 (s.w.m.) U.S.A. Nearctic. AntCat AntWiki HOL

Taxonomic history

See also: Wilson, 2003a: 528.

Va., N. C., Ohio, Tenn.

Pheidole tysoni is a species of ant and a higher myrmicine in the family Formicidae.