title: New records of ant species from Yunnan, China.
abstract: As with many other regions of the world, significant collecting, curation, and taxonomic efforts will be needed to complete the inventory of China's ant fauna. This is especially true for the highly diverse tropical regions in the south of the country, where moist tropical forests harbor high species richness typical of the Southeast Asian region. We inventoried ants in the Xingshuangbanna prefecture, Yunnan, in June 2013, using a variety of methods including Winkler extraction and hand collection to sample ant diversity. We identified 213 species/morphospecies of ants from 10 subfamilies and 61 genera. After identification of 148 valid species of the 213 total species collected, 40 species represent new records for Yunnan province and 17 species are newly recorded for China. This increases the total number of named ant species in Yunnan and China to 447 and 951 respectively. The most common species collected were Brachyponeraluteipes and Vollenhoviaemeryi. Only one confirmed exotic species Strumigenysmembranifera, was collected, although several others were potentially introduced by humans. These results highlight the high biodiversity value of the region, but also underscore how much work remains to fully document the native myrmecofauna.
authors: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Okinawa, 904-0495, Japan.
authors: Cong
authors: C
authors: Liu
authors: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Okinawa, 904-0495, Japan ; School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong.
authors: Benoit
authors: B
authors: Guénard
authors: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Okinawa, 904-0495, Japan.
authors: Francisco Hita
authors: FH
authors: Garcia
authors: Haruyama-cho 1054-1, Kagoshima-shi, 899-2704, Japan.
authors: Seiki
authors: S
authors: Yamane
authors: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Okinawa, 904-0495, Japan ; Committee on Evolutionary Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
authors: Benjamin
authors: B
authors: Blanchard
authors: Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.
authors: Da-Rong
authors: DR
authors: Yang
authors: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Okinawa, 904-0495, Japan.
authors: Evan
authors: E
authors: Economo
keywords: China; Formicidae; Xishuangbanna; Yunnan; new records