Chasitermes pax Scheffrahn & Carrijo, 2023

Scheffrahn, Rudolf H. & Carrijo, Tiago F., 2023, Chasitermes pax, a new genus and species of soldierless termite (Termitidae, Apicotermitinae) from the island of Trinidad, ZooKeys 1139, pp. 127-136 : 127

Chasitermes pax Scheffrahn & Carrijo sp. nov.

Type locality.

Tunapuna, island of Trinidad.

Material examined.

Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, Tunapuna (10.667, -61.396), elev. 248 m, 4JAN2012, J. Chase, UFTC no. TT 2188 holotype worker and about 75 additional workers .

Diagnosis and description.

As described for the genus.

Etymology.

The species is named for the Pax Guest House where we stayed during our expeditions to Trinidad. It is on the tranquil and inspirational property of the Mount Saint Benedict Abby which encompasses the type locality of C. pax . “Pax” is latin for “peace”, and represents a noun in apposition.

Ecology and distribution.

The C. pax workers were collected under a stone. Gut contents confirm that C. pax feeds on soil organic matter. So far, this species is only known from the Northern Range on the island of Trinidad.

Molecular analysis.

The gene tree recovered Chasitermes pax as sister group to Rubeotermes , but with very low posterior probability. The low branch support for most major clades in the neotropical Apicotermitinae should be interpreted as a polytomy (Fig. 5 ).

Figures

Figure 5. Bayesian phylogenetic tree of the Apicotermitinae subfamily using the COI region. Chasitermes pax gen. et sp. nov. is shown in red. Branch support is posterior probability.