Notes on the habitat and biology of the rare ant genus Tyrannomyrmex (Fernández, 2003)

The myrmicine ant genus Tyrannomyrmex Fernandez, 2003 comprises three species of tropical ants restricted to the Oriental region. The biology of these ants is thus far unknown, as records of all species are based on solitary workers extracted from leaf litter samples. Both Tyrannomyrmex dux Borowiec, 2007 and Tyrannomyrmex legatus Alpert, 2013 are known from single specimens collected in India and Sri Lanka respectively; while the type species Tyrannomyrmex rex Fernandez, 2003 described from a solitary worker collected in Peninsular Malaysia, was recently recorded from a single worker in Singapore (Jacquemin et al. 2015). The genus was also recorded from Sabah, Borneo (Fisher et al. 2015).The first known live colony of T. rex (and of the genus as a whole) was collected in Singapore in March 2016. Here we provide measurements for T. rex workers, describe their habitat, and discuss preliminary observations on their biology from rearing the ants in captivity for 10 days. Three video recordings (Electronic Supplementary Material) accompany our descriptions of the ants’ behaviour.