Pseudomyrmex spinicola is a species of red myrmecophyte

Myrmecophyte

Myrmecophyte is a plant that lives in a mutualistic association with a colony of ants. There are over 100 different genera of myrmecophytes. These plants possess structural adaptations that provide ants with food and/or shelter. These specialized structures include domatia, food bodies, and...

-inhabiting neotropical ant

Ant

Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...

s which are found only in Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

 and Costa Rica

Costa Rica

Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....

. They live in the thorns of a tropical tree, Acacia collinsii

Acacia collinsii

Acacia collinsii is a species of flowering plant. It grows in secondary succession in seasonally dry ecosystems in southern Central America, where it exhibits a symbiotic relationship with several species of ant...

, feeding on nectaries

Nectar (plant)

Nectar is a sugar-rich liquid produced by plants. It is produced in glands called nectaries, either within the flowers, in which it attracts pollinating animals, or by extrafloral nectaries, which provide a nutrient source to animal mutualists, which in turn provide anti-herbivore protection...

 along with the protein and lipid

Lipid

Lipids constitute a broad group of naturally occurring molecules that include fats, waxes, sterols, fat-soluble vitamins , monoglycerides, diglycerides, triglycerides, phospholipids, and others...

-rich beltian bodies

Beltian body

A Beltian body is a structure found on the leaves of some species of Acacia. Beltian bodies, named after Thomas Belt, are found on the tips of each leaflet and are rich in lipids and proteins and often red in colour. They are believed to have evolved in a symbiotic relationship with ants...

. These bodies are named for Thomas Belt

Thomas Belt

Thomas Belt , an English geologist and naturalist, was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1832, and educated in that city. He is remembered for his work on the geology of gold bearing minerals, glacial geology, and for his description of the mutualistic relationship between certain bullthorn Acacia...

, a naturalist who first described the interactions between acacias and ants in his 1874 book Naturalist in Nicaragua.

P. spinicola are the more aggressive among a number of A. collinsii-inhabiting species that engage in a classic case of mutualism. The ants receive colony space in A. collinsii to support their population structure. In return, the ants actively defend the tree from herbivory

Herbivore

Herbivores are organisms that are anatomically and physiologically adapted to eat plant-based foods. Herbivory is a form of consumption in which an organism principally eats autotrophs such as plants, algae and photosynthesizing bacteria. More generally, organisms that feed on autotrophs in...

 and often from competing plants nearby, clearing the forest floor of other seedlings. Sometimes, a large P. spinicola colony may be spread between two or more trees, protecting each tree within their colony and possibly grooming A. collinsii seedlings within that microhabitat

Habitat (ecology)

A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant or other type of organism...

 to be used by the colony.

Populations of mutualistic myrmecophyte-inhabiting ants may be space limited, and therefore P. spinicola use the largest-volume thorns for the queen's chamber and other large-volume thorns for egg nurseries. The smallest eggs will be found in the queen's chamber, before being redistributed to other larger thorns to be nursed through early life stages.