The Ants of Africa
Genus Lepisiota
Lepisiota schoutedeni (Santschi)

Petiole with spines longer than their basal interval - incisa-group

Lepisiota schoutedeni (Santschi)

return to key {link to the Hymenoptera Name Server} 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 .


Santschi's (1935a) description is at {original description} . 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.


Santschi's (1930b) description is on {original description}.


{Lepisiota schoutedeni}The photomontage of the type worker is collated from http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=casent0903147

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