The Ants of Africa
Genus Hypoponera
Hypoponera petiolata (Bernard)

Hypoponera petiolata (Bernard)

return to key {link to the Hymenoptera Name Server} Type location Guinea (Ponera petiolata n. sp., Bernard, 1952: 203, illustrated, worker), Mt. Nimba, holotype only from Sérengbara, station B6-6, collected by Lamotte
worker only described (new combination in Hypoponera, in Bolton, 1995) .

Bolton & Fisher's (2011: 112) give notes describing this as a "species inquirendae" and a possible specimen of Hypoponera punctatissima. Their notes can be found in http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/list/2011/2843.html.


{Hypoponera petiolata}WORKER - TL 2.6 mm, HL 0.75, HW 0.50
Entirely deep yellow, shiny, with only the borders of the head brownish. Head, propodeum and gaster densely puncturated with large punctures, regularly spaced by twice their diameter. Thorax with few punctures, but with fine transverse rugae. Pliosity whitish-yellow, short and recumbent, densest on the tarsi. Head elongated (length 1.5 times the width) and very convex, sides straight but widening gently from the clypeus to a maximum just before the vertex. Antennal scape not reaching the vertex. Eyes of a single large, rounded facet, about one-sixth back from the mandibles. Clypeus slightly convex, with a vague median carina, anterior margin rectilinear. Mandibles slightly puncturated, with 4 large black teeth, subtended by 5 smaller yellow teeth. Thorax profile almost flat. Propodeum short, rounded with declivity flat, a little shorter than the dorsum, without marked lateral margins. Petiole scale remarkable in its great volume, equal to that of the propodeum, very high and thick.

Bernard (1952) noted how the voluminous petiole appeared frequent in the "subgenus Hypoponera" but (in petiolata) was new for a true "Ponera". H. petiolata was equally isolated from the true "Ponera" by its pale colour and strong puncturation rather than reticulation.


{Hypoponera petiolata} The photomontage of the type worker is collated from http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=casent0915489.

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