The Ants of Africa
Genus Camponotus subgenus Myrmotrema
Camponotus (Myrmotrema) argus Santschi

Camponotus (Myrmotrema) argus Santschi

return to key {link to the Hymenoptera Name Server} Type location Zaïre (Santschi, 1935: 282, not illustrated, worker) collected at Mongende, 14.iv.1921, by Dr Schouteden - no images on Antweb (September 2014); holotype worker only described (see Bolton, 1995) .


Santschi's (1935) description is -
WORKER - TL 4-5 mm; head trapezoidal with the sides a little convex, slightly less narrowed anteriorly than benguelensis. The eyes are about as large as three-sevenths of the face; seen from the front they reach the posterior angle of the face, seen in profile they are separated by a quarter to one third of their length from the posterior border. Clypeus with diffuse median carina. Frontal carinae about as long as half the transverse diameter of the eye (in benguelensis about the same as the full diameter). Scape is cylindrical, surpassing the occipitum by about half its length; funiculus segments are shorter than benguelensis. Pronotum as wide as the head, depressed and bordered both anteriorly and laterally; in profile slightly convex; narrowing from about the midpoint to an abrupt junction with the propodeum. Propodeum is very compressed so that its two faces are reduced to a narrow declivity. Petiole scale with a slim summit.
Colour black; mandibles, distal scape and tarsi brownish; rest of antenna red brown. Posterior borders of gastral tergites narrowly bordered with white. Overall matt, with very fine reticulo-puncturation. Gaster slightly less matt and more finely sculpted. Pilosity of erect, very fine and sharp, whitish hairs; these are narrower and truncated in postoculatus Forel (type location South Africa), and shorter, finer and less abundant in benguelensis Santschi (type location Angola). Pubescence also short, very fine and whitish, finer than tenuipilis (ssp of Camponotus olivieri) but as abundant on the alitrunk and abdomen, more slender slimmer and more golden in postoculatus and benguelensis. This pilosity is a little shorter and less fine on the head, and there is a distinct bare band in the centre of the gaster.
Related to postoculatus by its eyes and thorax form but easily separated by its pilosity.

Contents
© 2007, 2011, 2014 - Brian Taylor CBiol FSB FRES
11, Grazingfield, Wilford, Nottingham, NG11 7FN, U.K.

href="camponotus_argus.htm"