Dorylus (Rhogmus) fimbriatus (Shuckard)

Male Type location Gambia (Rhogmus fimbriatus, Shuck., Shuckard, 1840c: 325, male, no locality given; Emery, 1895j, 736, worker; Brauns, 1903: 294, queen) - see below
subspecies
crampeli (Dorylus (Rhogmus) fimbriatus Shuck. var. Crampeli n. var., Santschi, 1919b: 232, male) from Congo - no images on Antweb (June 2014; a search under crampeli leads to the type male of laevipodex)
poweri (Dorylus (Rhogmus) fimbriatus Shuck. v. Poweri n. var., Forel, 1914d: 217, worker) from South Africa - see below
laevipodex (Dorylus (Rhogmus) fimbriatus Shuck. var. laevipodex n. var., Santschi, 1919b: 232, male) type location Kenya - see http://www.antweb.org/specimenImages.do?code=casent0911347
all forms known (see Bolton, 1995) .

Shuckard's (1840c) description is at . F Smith (1859b: 4) gave - . Emery's (1895j) translation into German of Shuckard's (1840c) description, with illustrations of the male, is at . Emery (1901c: 187) had an illustrated description of the worker morphs - . Forel's (1914d) description of poweri is at . Arnold (1915) gave full descriptions of all the life stages, with an illustration of the queen, these are at , and . The male description is a transcription of Shuckard's original description. Santschi's (1919c) description of crampeli is at and laevipodex at . Boven (1967a: 55) made a comparative study of the queens of fimbriatus (from Ivory Coast) and the termitarius (holotype), with illustrations; this is at .

* Note - The Antweb image collection has a male labelled Dorylus laevipodex by W H Gotwald. Prior the availablity (June 2014) of the Santschi laevipodex type, which appears to match the fimbriatus type male in every detail, I agreed with Gotwald's separation. I still do but the specimen is not laevipodex - see Dorylus (Rhogmus) ??.

Brauns, J. 1903. Ueber das Weibchen von Dorylus (Rhogmus) fimbriatus Shuck. (Hym.). Zeitschrift für Systematische Hymenopterologie und Dipterologie 3: 294-298, listed but not available in HNS.

Emery (1901c) gave the sizes as: Major TL 7.5 mm; minima with 11-segmented antennae, TL 3.5 mm; 10-segmented antennae, TL 2.7-3.1 mm; 9-segmented antennae, TL 2.6-3.0 mm; 7-8-segmented antennae, TL 1.7-2.2 mm.  The series of workers was sent to Emery by Dr J Brauns, who lived in Willowmore, South Africa (Brauns, J., 1903).  The specimens came from a nest in "Maschunaland", near Salisbury, Rhodesia (Harare, Zimbabwe) sampled by G.A.K. Marshall. Earlier, Emery (1895j) wrote of the worker as hitherto being unknown but two small workers, TL 2-2.25 mm, were found with a male from Sierra Leone.  So, presumably, his recognition of workers as fimbriatus is tenuous, although Brauns related sending Emery the males and workers..

Santschi (1930a: 56) reported workers from Soudan Francaise (now Mali), Koulouba (Andrieu), 28 workers, that differed little from fimbriatus (?) but were no more than TL 5.5 mm, which led him to suppose they could be the workers of the variety Crampeli which had small males.

Arnold (1915) wrote of the largest workers as having dense puncturation and a dull, finely but distinctly rugulose alitrunk. On the head the sculpture was anteriorly finely punctured, microscopically rugulose and dull, behind that the head was closely and strongly punctured with the interspaces smooth and shining.

Queen illustrations from Brauns (1903). The specimen came from a nest in "Maschunaland", near Salisbury, Rhodesia (Harare, Zimbabwe) sampled by G.A.K. Marshall.

Santschi (1930a: 56) reported workers from Soudan Francaise (now Mali), Koulouba (Andrieu), 28 workers, that differed little from fimbriatus (?) but were no more than TL 5.5 mm, which led him to suppose they could be the workers of the variety Crampeli which had small males.

Santschi's (1919b) brief description of crampeli notes only that the male was somewhat smaller than the type, e.g. HW 4.4, and the pygidium with paler pubescence. He separated laevipodex as slightly more robust; the gaster up to 7.3 mm long, the anterior wing 23 mm; the outer third of the mandible is not concave; the pygidium without pubescence and the hairs are long, fine and clear, so that the segment seems entirely smooth and shiny.

The photomontage is of the holotype male collated from http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=casent0901943.

The photomontage is of a type minor worker of poweri collated from http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=casent0905931.  This and the workers from Senegal (below) and Nigeria all appear to be similar.

Note: The Antweb page for Dorylus fimbriatus poweri also has images of a major worker with labels for this species. I show a photomontage at the bottom of this page but the specimen actually seems to be a major worker of D. (D.) brevipennis.

Nigeria specimens (Taylor, 1980b: 19). WORKER. TL 7.16-2.12 mm . Five morphs; largest HL 1.56, HW 1.40, SL 0.56, PW 0.87
Colour dark orange-brown. Head, alitrunk and petiole finely reticulostriate, striations more marked dorsally. Scattered hair-pits on all dorsal surfaces, coarser on head. Erect hairs sparse but two pairs on propodeum, a few on both surfaces of the petiole and gaster, very long on first sternite. Relatively abundant pilosity on the dorsal alitrunk, petiole and all over gaster. Mandibles with a moderate apical tooth, the subapical tooth bluntly bifurcate and basal tooth reduced. Anterior clypeal margin straight but projecting forward slightly. Alitrunk dorsum flat. Subpetiolar process a small rear-curved triangle.
I collected it at the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria, Idi Ayunre. from a tree stump and outside a ground nest, perhaps migrating.

Wheeler (1922) listed findings from Guinea at Conakry and Mamou (F. Silvestri), Ghana, Cameroun and many other tropical African countries.

Schneirla (1971) noted it as inhabiting the "deep subterranean zone".

Oxford University Museum specimens

Dorylus (Rhogmus) fimbriatus B Taylor det.

Senegal Tambacounda B Ndiaye

10.viii.2009 Bansifoukha 13°06'30"N 12°05'18" W

Bansifoukha 10-VIII-09 St11 au sol Soudanian savannah, hand collection, on ground

4

The photomontage is of a media 1 worker from Senegal, Dzanga-Sangha NP; collector B Ndiaye (CAR NX).

The photomontage is of a media 2 worker from Senegal, Dzanga-Sangha NP; collector B Ndiaye (CAR NX).

The photomontage is of a minima worker from Senegal, Dzanga-Sangha NP; collector B Ndiaye (CAR NX).

The photomontage of what may be a minima from Gabon is collated from http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=casent0235172&shot=p1&project=null. There it is listed as Dorylus fulvus, although the morphology and appearance matches the worker above, it is much smaller (assuming the scales to be correct) but it certainly is not a specimen of D. fulvus.

The photomontage is of a major worker labelled as the type major worker of poweri collated from http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=casent0905930.
Note This does not match the description and appears, in fact, to be a major worker of Dorylus (D.) brevipennis.