Talk:Odontomachus

Latest comment: 2 years ago by Cy21 in topic Etymology

Distribution edit

Article says "Odontomachus species are found in Central to South America, tropical Asia, Australia, and Africa". I found one in my apartment in Greece. I killed it, but I kept the "body". I had found another one many years ago, over a decade. Is it irregular but normal or significant? Should I take it to an entomologist at the University? Simanos (talk) 01:21, 23 October 2011 (UTC)Reply

Assessment comment edit

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Odontomachus/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

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Odontomachus redirects from Trap-Jaw Ant. This implies that Odontomachus is the only trap-jaw ant. Such is most certianly false information. What is not mentioned are Daceton armigerum and Strumigenys sp. All three are mentioned by Wulfila Gronenberg in THE TRAP-JAW MECHANISM IN THE DACETINE ANTS DACETON ARMIGERUM AND STRUMIGENYS SP., which was published in The Journal of Experimental Bionlogy 199,pp. 2021-2033 (1996). Such is a very good example of convergent evolution. I believe a main trap-jaw ant page should be developed which can from there link to the specific families or subfamiles as is necessary. If Gronenburg considers all of the convergent evolutions to be trap-jaw ants then I would listen, as he is most likely the world expert on trap-jaw ants (I remember his name comming up often in 1999 when I was in 8th grade doing a project on trap-jaw ants, and back then I was lucky to get more than 5 results when searching the web).

Also I beleive that National Geographic did an article on Strumigenys way back in the 80's, where they refered to them as "trap-jaw ants." Not to mention Ranger Rick (certianly an impressive scientific publication) also did a peice on trap-jaw ants, and I believe they were also Strumigenys.

In fact with these changes made I would argue that that the trap-jaw ant page should be bumped up a level in importance, as it would cover multiple species and discuss convergent evolution.

TheTooth 09:37, 10 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Last edited at 09:43, 10 April 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 20:09, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Etymology edit

  • The genus name, Odontomachus, translates from Greek to "fighting tooth" (source)
  • odon means "tooth" from Greek genitive odontos.