Melissotarsus beccarii Emery

Type location Eritrea (Melissotarsus Beccarii n. sp., Emery, 1877b: 379, illustrated, worker; Forel, 1914d: 243, queen & male) Keren, Beccari
all forms known (see Bolton, 1995) .

Emery's (1877b) description is at . Forel's (1914d) description of the queen & male is at .

Arnold (1916: 189) gave an illustrated translation and recorded findings in South Africa; this is at . Bolton's modern description (1982) is at

WORKER - TL 2.3-3.3 mm; alitrunk in dorsal view with anterior margin of the pronotum rounding evenly into the anterior declivity, the two not meeting in a sharp angle or edge; similarly lateral margin of alitrunk dorsum without a distinct angle; colour dull yellowish brown to dark yellow.

Bolton (1982) reported findings from Ivory Coast, at Lamto and nr. Abidjan (?ORSTOM) (both by W.L. Brown); also from East and South Africa.

An example from Zimbabwe is pictured in Hölldobler & Wilson (1990, page 111). Nests under the bark of living trees.

A specimen in the CRIN collection actually came from CRIG, Ghana but the identification may have been wrong as the reported species from Ghana are emeryi and weissi (Bolton, 1982).

The photomontage of the holotype is collated from http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=casent0102042.