The Ants of Africa
Genus Asphinctopone
Asphinctopone lucidus Weber

Asphinctopone lucidus Weber

return to key {link to the Hymenoptera Name Server} Type location Central African Republic (Weber, 1949b: 7, illustrated, worker); worker only described (see Bolton, 1995, who spells it as lucida) - no images on Antweb (at June 2014) .


{Asphinctopone lucidus}Weber's description (1949b) is at {original description}. WORKER (updated by me): Extended length 3.5 mm; of thorax (including neck) 1.1 mm. Head in front view, excluding mandibles, one and one-fifth times longer than broad, occipital margin feebly convex, corners broadly rounded, sides feebly convex; clypeus with a median carina which projects slightly over the anterior margin, the latter otherwise slightly concave medially and produced laterally on each side as an obtuse angle which projects over the cutting margin of the mandibles; frontal lobes fused, flat, short, and convex; eyes about 0.04 mm. in diameter, situated at the sides about four of their diameters from the base of the mandibles; mandibles narrow, triangular, evenly convex on their lateral margins, with five or six teeth exposed beyond the clypeal lobe; antennal scapes distinctly exceeding occipital angles, slender, slightly enlarged distally, slightly longer than the funiculus to the terminal segment, funiculus with three-segmented club equal in length to the preceding seven taken together. Thorax from above with well-developed neck, behind which the pronotum rises as an even convexity and is broader than the remainder of the thorax: mesonotum small and transversely elliptical, well marked from the pronotum and propodeum: metanotal groove deep, propodeum with sides flattish and converging up to the basal surface, declivity plane and marginate at the side; thorax in side view forming one general arc interrupted by promesonotal and a much deeper metanotal impression, the propdeum declivity surface being flattened. Petiolar node high and scale-like, in side view with sides converging to a narrow, convex apex; viewed from in front the scale has convex sides broadest above the middle and a slightly angulate convex apex. Gaster from above elongate-ovate, evenly convex anteriorly first and second segments approximately equal in length and forming about two-thirds of the gaster; sting of moderate dimensions and exserted. Legs long and slender, of moderate proportions.
Shining; head densely and finely, thorax and especially propodeum more sparsely but coarsely, gaster and appendages except mandibles finely punctate; mandibles with a few piligerous punctures. Hairs largely absent except for a dense yellow tuft at the apex of the gaster; pubescence moderately fine and dense, especially on the antennae and legs, but sparsely on the gaster.
Uniformly bright ferruginous.
HOLOTYPE: One worker taken March l2, 1948, 5 miles west of Bangassou, Ubangi-Shari, French Equatorial Africa. The ant was in well-developed gallery forest extending up a watercourse from the Mbomu River and was beneath damp leaves on the forest floor.
The genotype, A. silvestrii Santschi, described from Nigeria in 1914, differs distinctly in having antennal scapes failing to reach the occiput, the propodeum more steeply declivitous, the petiolar scale thicker, and in other ways.

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© 2007, 2008, 2012, 2014 - Brian Taylor CBiol FSB FRES
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