Harvester Ant Signage

Discovery Center: Maricopa Harvester Ant signage. January 22, 2018.

For those of you that don't know, Maricopa County, Arizona is the county that Phoenix is located in. Pardon my speculation but it is likely that Pogonomyrmex maricopa was discovered in Maricopa County, Arizona and would thus make Maricopa County the type locality.

One more thing, regarding the signage, it is obvious to most ZooChatters, but the species name maricopa should be lower case. Maybe I should point that out to relevant staff...

Here is what Wikipedia had to say about this species' distribution range;

"Pogonomyrmex maricopa, the Maricopa harvester ant, is one of the most common species of harvester ant found in the U.S. state of Arizona, but it is also known from California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas and Utah, and the Mexican states of Baja California, Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Sonora."

To be honest, that is a larger distribution range than what I would have expected...

@UngulateNerd92 the type locality was Alamogordo in New Mexico. The name maricopa is probably given for the Maricopa tribe. The author (Wheeler) didn't give an etymology in his paper describing maricopa but it is probably related to another of the genus named P. comanche - although he described it as a subspecies of P. californicus Wheeler also postulated that P. comanche was "the parent species" of maricopa.

@Chlidonias ah very fascinating! Where did you find this information?

@UngulateNerd92 from the paper Wheeler wrote describing maricopa.

@Chlidonias remind me what journal this paper would be in?

In a journal named Psyche.

The reference is Wheeler, W. M. 1914. New and little known harvesting ants of the genus Pogonomyrmex Psyche 21:149-157.

This link should work to take you to the paper: http://psyche.entclub.org/pdf/21/21-149.pdf

@Chlidonias thank you so much!