Brown and Wilson (1959) summarize the genus as follows: "Widespread in tropics and warm temperate areas. Primarily forest-dwelling; some species occur in grassland and arid scrub. ... Nests mostly in soil and rotting wood; a few species live in arboreal plant cavities in tropical rain forest. Foraging hypogaeic to epigaeic-arboreal. Food: most species are collembolan feeders; a few are polyphagous predators or occasionally feed on sugary substances..."
Members of the genus are all predaceous, with a kinetic mode of attack (Bolton 1999).
Regarding precava, Brown (1962) reported "I found this species rather common on Barro Colorado Island [Panama] ..., nesting in red- or chocolate-rotten logs. One nest found was very large, containing several hundred - perhaps a thousand or more - workers. Workers were seen carrying a mycetophilid larva and a termite nymph into this nest as it was being opened, and a captive colony fed on a wide variety of small arthropods, including entomobryoid collembolans."
Costa Rica south throughout tropical South America. In Costa Rica: southern Pacific lowlands.
Taxonomic history
[Strumigenys precava Weber, 1952b PDF: 2; unavailable name, attributed to Brown.].See also: Bolton, 2000: 547.
