The Ants of Africa

	The Ants of Africa SUBFAMILY DORYLINAE - Subgenus Typhlopone
*Genus Dorylus* and Key**

Subgenus Typhlopone Westwood (1839: 219)

Diagnostic Features - Antennae 11-jointed; subapical tooth of mandible simple; impressed area of pygidium without sharp margins.

Shuckard (1840b: 262) noting that Westwood had not given a generic or specific description of what he called Typhlopone fulvus gave a genus definition based on the worker (with a short description of D. (T.) fulvus kirbii); this is at .

One other species, Dorylus (T.) labiatus Shuckard (1840c: 319) is known from the Indian sub-Continent; an illustrated description of the male and workers by Bingham (1903: 2) is on . Apparently that is separable by the major worker having a posteriorly narrowed head, with no median longitudinal line or impression; also alitrunk narrower with straighter sides, petiole narrower (distinctly longer than wide from above) and also less pubescent (Forel, 1901a: 464). See also the modern review of the South East Asian Dorylus, including labiatus by Stefanie M Berghoff, this can be found at - http://deposit.ddb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?idn=967765773&dok_var=d1&dok_ext=pdf&filename=967765773.pdf.

Leroux (1979) thought that members of the subgenus (naming fulvus and badius) feed mainly on other Dorylines, especially Dorylus nigricans.

Bolton (1995: 181) listed a single member of the subgenus Typhlopone as known from Africa - Dorylus (Typhlopone) fulvus (Westwood). Some twenty subordinate names appear under the headings of subspecies or junior synonyms. The original authors, however, variously listed the forms as new species, stirps, varieties. Now (July 2009) I have separated the African/Middle East forms into several readily separable species. In several cases these are a reversion to the original status. My consideration starts on the linked page. Availability of type images has supported my separation (July 2014).

Genus Dorylus and Key

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