Species Info General

Other common names include: n/a

Six species of Cardiocondyla have been recorded in the Hawaiian Islands.  Most are more or less terrestrial in habit, though one (Cardiocondyla obscurior) is primarily found in arboreal situations.  These ants are all very small and, though common and widespread, are rarely encountered in large numbers.  They do not travel in orderly trails like many familiar ants, but instead tend to be seen in ones and twos and threes sneaking around atop, say, a sidewalk, a picnic table or even your arm or shoulder after having fallen out of the tree you’re standing beneath.  Their tiny size and low densities are such that these ants aren’t usually noticed unless one is making an effort to find them.  At higher elevations one may encounter a colony of Cardiocondyla itsukii by flipping over stones in cow pastures.

Deyrup, Davis & Cover (2000) appear to have been the first to refer to the ants in the genus as “sneaking ants” and this name has stuck (Wetterer 2012).  Accurate identification of ants in the genus was muddled for much of the 20th century, due in part to the variability of many Cardiocondyla species.  Deyrup (2017) wrote: “ The taxonomy of the group had slowly degenerated into chaos until 2003, when Bernhard Seifert brought order to a major portion of the genus, including the tramp species” – these “tramp species” being the ones we have here in Hawaiʻi.

Some of these ants, especially Cardiocondyla emeryi, thrive in highly disturbed environments.  Surveys conducted by Maui Invasive Species Committee suggest that C. emeryi is the most widely distributed Cardiocondyla throughout the populated lowlands of the island.  Huddleston & Fluker (1968) reported it to be “abundant at lower elevations and in lower rainfall areas” though Fellers & Fellers (1981) reported finding it as high as 1900m at the head of Kaupō Gap.

Some, notably Cardiocondyla itsukii and C. minutior, can also readily be found at high elevations, such as within Haleakalā National Park.  In his introduction to the Fauna Hawaiiensis, Perkins (1913) wrote that Cardiocondyla minutior “is found in the mountains and on the coast alike.”  Several authors (Wheeler 1908, Smith 1944, Deyrup 2017) note that Cardiocondyla venustula is commonly found in fields, beaches and other low elevation open areas.  However it seems equally at home in the mountains, with Lubertazzi (2019) reporting detections as high as 2030m on Hispaniola.