By Empower Young Journalist Krisha Bansal
Ecuador, May 13th: Ecuador is a country in South America which has a variety of animal and plant species.
The trap-jaw ant kingdom of Ecuador consists of 51 species as of now; many of them are native species. A
new species from the Ecuadorian Chocó Darién bioregion will give us a better understanding about the
diversity of the region. Strumigenys Ayersthey is a very unique species of ant due to its smooth and shiny cuticle
(outer layer) surface and a very long trap-jaw mandible (jaw or jawbone). This was very unique from over 850
species of its genus, Strumigenys. It is found living in the evergreen tropical forests of Ecuador.
The ant was identified by the German entomologist Philip Hoenle. He studied this species with a taxonomic expert from Yale University, Douglas B. Booher. They gave it the species name of “ayersthey”. Ayer is in honour of the artist Jeremy Ayers and the suffix -they, is gender neutral. This makes it the only species celebrating gender neutrality.
