Hypoponera coeca (Santschi)

Type location Cameroun (Ponera coeca n.sp., Santschi, 1914d: 322, illustrated, worker & queen; new combination in Hypoponera, in Bolton, 1995) from Victoria, collector F. Silvestri, in 1913, 1 worker & 1 queen .

Santschi's (1914d) description is at .

Bolton & Fisher's re-description can be found in http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/list/2011/2843.html. They synonymised Hypoponera myrmicariae with coeca but that I feel was an error, as myrmicariae  is distinctly smaller and has a lower petiole with more rounded apex in profile

WORKER (translation of Santschi) TL 2 mm, pale reddish-yellow; matt, extremity of gaster, clypeus and mandibles shiny; very finely punctate' covered with very fine pubescence (as on a plum [peach}; eyeless; mandibles longer than wide with 6 teeth, the anterior three larger; funiculus with club effectively from the seventh segment; promesonotal suture distinct, the metanotal suture semi-effaced; petiole a little higher than the posterior of the propodeum, apex rounded in profile, from above wider then longer and regularly rounded anteriorly; basal segment of gaster longer than wide, truncated in front.

WORKER (from Guinea, after Bernard, 1952) - TL ca. 2.2 mm; pale yellow, testaceous; vertex of head narrower than maximum width, eyeless, scapes not reaching the vertex of the head, mandibles with 11-12 clear teeth; anterior 5 larger, clypeus without an apical point. Fusion of thorax segments less accentuated than myrmicariae, lateral border convex, with narrowing between mesonotum and propodeum; petiole scale triangular.

Wheeler (1922) listed it also from Zaïre.

Bernard (1952) noted that in Guinea this ant, described from Cameroun and Congo (Zaïre) by Santschi, appeared spread right across Nimba, from the Kéoulenta savanna (5 workers) and the ravins of Mount Tô, to the leaf litter of the north-eastern forest (with numerous specimens collected by Lamotte and Villiers). He felt that myrmicariae and inaudax were most likely to be no more than varieties of coeca, especially as several specimens from Nimba were intermediate to the myrmicariae form. He also recorded it as known from Ivory Coast (Banco, Villiers or Delamare-Debouteville).

The photomontage of the type worker is collated from http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=casent0915189.

Oxford University Museum specimens

Hypoponera coeca B Taylor det.

Cameroun A Fotso Kuate Hypoponera sp1

21.ix.2007 Awae II 03°54'30" N 11°25'58" E

Quadrat in fallow

1

The photomontage is of a specimen from Cameroun, Awae II; coll. A Fotso Kuate (fk sp1). The alitrunk profile exactly matches the type.