The Ants of Africa
Genus Terataner
Terataner velatus Bolton

Terataner velatus Bolton

return to key {link to the Hymenoptera Name Server} Type location Ghana (Bolton, 1981b, not illustrated)
worker only described .


{Terataner velatus}Bolton's description (1981b) is at {original description}.

WORKER - similar to piceus but slightly smaller, TL 4.5 mm, and with rugular sculpture on the promesonotum, plus hairs on the first gastral tergite. Colour mid-brown to blackish-brown.

Holotype worker and 1 paratype worker from Okumaning (D. Leston, 12.viii.1969). Other Leston collections were at Kade (1 paratype worker) and Enchi (2 paratype workers; 12.v.1969). Although not listed by Bolton (1981b), it may be the Terataner species B collected by Room (1971) from cocoa leaf litter, canopy and mistletoe at the Mampong Cemetery Farm, and at three of his other cocoa canopy samples. In a later paper on the fauna of cocoa mistletoe, Room (1972a) described it as a mimic of Crematogaster africana, as it uses that ant's trails and copies its habit of bending the gaster over the alitrunk, and also of Crematogaster buchneri. He confused the question of species by listing Terataner species 37 as the only Terataner on cocoa mistletoe in Ghana by Room (1975).

Also known from Ivory Coast, Banco Forest (1 worker, W.L. Brown, 10.i.1963) (Bolton, 1981b).

The photomontage is collated from www.discoverlife.org - originals by Gary Alpert, Harvard University; paratype specimens from Ivory Coast.

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