[Taxacom] Syscia ant biogeography

[John Grehan]

Hi Brendon,

While some recent conceptual discussion is interesting, some may feel more
at home with specific instances and in this respect I was interested to see
the distribution of Syscia which I understand to be distributed in the New
World from southern US to Colombia and including the Caribbean, and in
Thailand - Japan - Sri Lanka (and apparently other unnamed species in the
region). As a geographic range, I am sure you will appreciate its contrast
to Leptomyrmex. As a range, Syscia is painfully obvious as a classic
Pacific centered range extending to the Indian subcontinent as the only
core Gondwana region. Syscia could indeed represent a Pacific group (i.e.
its ancestral range spanned what is now the Pacific), or it could be a
Gondwanic group that has become extinct across Africa/Madagascar, as well
as much of South America, not to mention other places. But it is
interesting that Longino & Branstetter 2020 place a Sri Lankan and
Malaysian species (each) within a Mexico-Costa Rica subclade. It would also
be interesting to know the sister genus and its distribution. Can you offer
any enlightenment on that?

Cheers, John