Paraparatrechina minima Taylor new species

Type location Nigeria

WORKER DESCRIPTION.
Overall colour yellow-orange, shiny. Very fine, dense pubescence on head, alitrunk and gaster. Erect hairs sparse especially on the head; alitrunk with a single main line of four pairs of hairs. Promesonotal and metanotal sutures distinct. In profile alitrunk more or less smoothly curved, but flatter medially.

TL 1.32 mm, HL 0.39, HW 0.31, SL 0.36, PW 0.22

Nests were seen in soil at the base of a cocoa tree, and in dead wood on a living tree at the Cocoa Research Institute, Idi Ayunre. Found foraging on the ground and occasionally on cocoa, where it will build tents over aphids (Taylor, 1978: 31).

Although this is a limited description, the species is so readily distinguished I am confident to identify it as a new species.  The name is self-explanatory.

Specimens deposited with the Natural History Museum, London.

Note - this description and name predates the Paraparatrechina gnoma of LaPolla & Cheng (2010).  As Dr LaPolla was reminded of my Paratrechina webpages (25.viii.2009) and of the posting of this name (8.ii.2010, as Paratrechina minima) the ICZN Code, Appendix A, would seem to protect P. minima - "2. A zoologist should not publish a new name if he or she has reason to believe that another person has already recognized the same taxon and intends to establish a name for it (or that the taxon is to be named in a posthumous work). A zoologist in such a position should communicate with the other person (or their representatives) and only feel free to establish a new name if that person has failed to do so in a reasonable period (not less than a year)". Dr LaPolla did not reply to my emails prior to their publication.