Lepisiota schoutedeni (Santschi)
Type location Zaïre (Acantholepis
schoutedeni n. sp., Santschi, 1935a: 271, illustrated, antennal
funiculus only, worker), Ituri, La Moto, collected by L. Burgeon - see
below
Holotype worker only .
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Santschi's (1935a) description is at . My translation is:
WORKER. TL 2.3 mm; colour black; antennae and articulations of tarsi
yellow brown. Head, pronotum and gaster smooth and shiny; remainder of
thorax matt or dull, reticulated, and puncturate as with Lepisiota ambigua.
Legs finely shagreened and dull. Hairless except, as ambigua,
hairs on the posterior of the gaster. In shape this species is
curiously similar to ambigua so that they are near
interchangeable, but the specimen has the head a little narrower, the
eyes somewhat larger, and bigger than one-third of the face. The scape
surpasses the occipital border by at least one-third of the face
length. The funiculus has segment 1 as long or longer than its width,
segment 2 is about one-fourth the length of 1. Spines of petiole scale
are basally a little closer, making them about as long as their basal
separation, as with the petiole of Lepisiota
spinosior (from Zimbabwe and southern Africa).
Santschi commented that spinosior, longispina
Arnold (a species not listed in Wheeler, 1922, or in Bolton, 1995) and
these varieties ambigua and schoutedeni, form a group
of very similar species, which perhaps are no more than subspecies;
other than schoutedeni being detached by its remarkable
sculpture and colour.
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