Data from: Temnothorax caryaluteus sp. nov. (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): A new ant species from the eastern United States

Although the ant genus Temnothorax is broadly distributed, extremely diverse, and likely still contains multitudes of undescribed species, discovering new species of this genus in eastern North America is rare due to the high concentration of taxonomic effort on this region. Here, we recognize and describe a new Temnothorax species that has consistently been misidentified in museum collections as T. ambiguus, a common inhabitant of acorn shells and leaf litter. Unlike Temnothorax ambiguus, the newly described T. caryaluteus sp. nov. apparently nests primarily in arboreal microhabitats such as dead branches on live trees, especially Carya and Quercus spp. We compare the morphology of T. caryaluteus sp. nov. against similar appearing congeners, delineate diagnostic characters, and provide an updated key to the Temnothorax species of eastern North America.