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The Ants of
Africa SUBFAMILY AMBLYOPONINAE Genera Stigmatomma Roger and Xymmer Santschi |
Contents - Amblyoponinae - Subfamily Amblyoponinae |
In Tribe AMBLYOPONINI.
Diagnostic Features - Elongated mandibles, pointed at the apex, but not as long as the head, and the tooth row on the inner margin single. Finely sculptured.
Erichson (1842: 260, type species Amblyopone australis, type
location Australia); senior synonym of Stigmatomma by Emery
& Forel (1879: 455) and its subgenus Xymmer Santschi
(1914d: 311), raised to genus in Wheeler (1922: 641), synonymy by Brown
(1949c: 87). Erichson's (1842) description (drawing unavailable) is at .
Santschi's (1914d) defintion of Stigmatomma (Xymmer), type species S. (X) muticum - essentially was "Clypeus advanced in a rectangular lobe; mandibles narrow with a range of simple teeth along the internal border; alitrunk narrow with the promesonotal suture distinct, the metanotal suture obsolete; petiole narrow, and elongated in frony, gaster strangled and very long; the rest as for Stigmatomma".
Although Brown (1949c) synonymised Xymmer with Stigmatomma, it is noteworthy that in his review (1960a) he wrote of Amblyopone as having the - "petiole with little or no peduncle"; otherwise he gives no more than a listing of African species.
A primarily savannah genus, described by Bolton (1973a) as rare and little known in West Africa. Arising from the ant ecology investigations at Lamto (Ivory Coast), Brown, Gotwald & Lévieux (1971) wrote how five or six members of the genus, together with Apomyrma stygia, constituted a remarkable and unexpected cryptic soil fauna, with some, perhaps all, feeding on centipedes. Gotwald and Lévieux (1972) described a new species, providing information on its biology, and wrote of "at least four species, Amblyopone mutica, Amblyopone pluto and 2 or 3 other species related to Amblyopone normandi and Amblyopone santschii being found at Lamto". Lévieux (1983b) described the members as subterranean inhabitors of savannah, which feed on geophilid centipedes (see Hölldobler & Wilson, 1990, page 559). The name Amblyopone stygia, is listed in Hölldobler & Wilson (1990, page 559) but this surely is Apomyrma stygia, the only Ponerine species with that specific name. From Bolton (1995) only three species have type locations in West Africa, but three others Amblyopone emeryi, Amblyopone gaetulica and Amblyopone normandi have type locations in North Africa.
Key to Sub-Saharan species. This has changed with the paper by Yoshimura & Fisher
(2012). They revive the monotypic Xymmer and Stigmatomma but gave no key to separate the workers.
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Xymmer - 2 |
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Stigmatomma - 3 |
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West Africa - Xymmer muticus |
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Nigeria specimen |
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4 |
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5 |
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Ivory Coast - Stigmatomma pluto |
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Kenya specimen |
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West Africa - Stigmatomma santschii |
-- | Petiole in profile with attachment to gaster as wide as first gastral segment; generally stocky | 6 |
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Rwanda specimen |
-- | Anterior clypeal margin with distinct teeth | 7 |
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Cameroun specimen |
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Ghana specimen |
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© 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012 - Brian Taylor CBiol FSB FRES 11, Grazingfield, Wilford, Nottingham, NG11 7FN, U.K. |
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