ASIAN MYRMECOLOGY Volume 10, e010003, 2018 ISSN 1985-1944 | eISSN: 2462-2362 © Sunittra Aupanun, Jiraporn Kulsarin, Weeyawat Jaitrong and Fuminori Ito INTRODUCTION The myrmicine ant genus Aphaenogaster com- prises 187 valid species (Bolton 2016) and is distributed in the temperate to tropical zones throughout the world. They are dominant ant spe- cies in many temperate forest ecosystems, and hold important positions as predators and dis- persers of myrmecochorous plants (Bednar et al. 2013, Caut et al. 2016, Higashi et al. 1987, Lu- bertazzi 2012, Mizutani & Imamura 1980, Ohara & Higashi 1987, Richards 2009, Thomas et al. 2016). Until now, our knowledge on the biology of Aphaenogaster ants has been limited to species in temperate regions. In the tropics, the species diversity of Aphaenogaster is thought to be low (cf. Brühl et al. 1998; Malsch et al. 2003), though the nest density of Aphaenogaster in some tropi- cal areas can be quite high (see Results), suggest- ing they may also have important functions in at least some tropical ecosystems. However, the biology and ecology of tropical Aphaenogaster species remains largely unknown. In this study, we investigated the biology of six species of Aphaenogaster in Thailand, and report on their nesting habits and colony composition. SHORT COMMUNICATION Colony composition and nesting habits of six species of Aphaenogaster in Thailand (Hymenoptera; Formicidae) Sunittra Aupanun 1,3,* , Jiraporn Kulsarin 1 , Weeyawat Jaitrong2 and Fuminori Ito3 1Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, Faculty of Agriculture, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50200 Thailand 2Thailand Natural History Museum, National Science Museum, Technopolis, Khlong 5, Khlong Luang, Pathum Thani, 12120 Thailand 3Faculty of Agriculture, Kagawa University, Ikenobe, Miki, 761-0795 Japan * Corresponding author: Sunittra.Aupanun@gmail.com Keywords: Bergmann’s rule, colony size, nest structure MATERIALS AND METHODS Colonies of six Aphaenogaster species were col- lected in northern (Chiang Mai Province), north- eastern (Sakon Nakhon Province), central (Sara- buri Province) and southern (Trang Province) Thailand (Fig. 1), from early June to the end of July in the rainy season of 2016. Because the tax- onomy of Aphaenogaster ants in Southeast Asia is still inadequate, we gave a species code for each species (Table 1, Figs. S1-S18). Aphaeno- gaster sp. 2 is similar to A. feae described from Myanmar, however, we could not compare our samples to the type specimen. The habitus of the six species and a tentative key is presented in the Electronic Supplementary Material. Voucher specimens were deposited in the Thailand Natu- ral History Museum and the Department of En- tomology and Plant Pathology, Faculty of Agri- culture, Chiang Mai University. The study sites in the north where sp.1 and sp. 2 were collected (a, b, c in Fig. 1) were located at high elevation (altitude 1277 m to 1367 m), while the three sites in southern and central Thailand, where sp. 4, sp. 5 and sp. 6 were found (f, g, h in Fig. 1), were lowland areas (altitude 66 m to 167 m). The el- DOI: 10.20362/am.010003