The Ants of Africa
Genus Pheidole
Pheidole nimba Bernard

fervens-group - Major distinguished particularly by the transverse metanotal welt; head with longitudinal striations or rugae, long frontal carinae with more or less distinct shallow scrobes; mandibles with two short apical teeth

Pheidole nimba Bernard

return to key {link to the Hymenoptera Name Server} Type location Guinea (Bernard, 1952: 224, illustrated, minor) 4 minors from the Nion crest, 1300 m, Mt. Nimba - see below; worker only described (Bolton, 1995, is wrong) .


{Pheidole nimba}Bernard's (1952) description is at {original description}. This translated is -

MINOR - TL 3.5-3.6, HL ca 1.45, HW ca 1.2
Entirely black, head matt, covered with large regular reticulation. Slender yellowish hairs, equal or longer in length to femur of hindleg. Head rounded, slightly narrowed posteriorly, border of vertex short and regularly concave. Pronotum flat or slightly concave dorsally; wide suture between mesonotum and propodeum, with tiny longitudinal crenellae; propodeum swollen posteriorly, spines incurved, about two-thirds of propodeum length. Petiole with rounded low node, twice as long as the peduncle (after Bernard, 1952).

Bernard (1952) felt this was related to Pheidole dea from Zaïre and especially Pheidole vanderveldi from Zaïre (Katanga) and Natal. The latter is larger (TL 4.2) and the head vertex border is angular, other details such as the funiculus segments, shape of pronotum, propodeum and shorter spines, also differ. He speculated that the undiscovered soldier of nimba would be not much larger than the minor (as was known for vanderveldi). I feel this is an incorrect assumption.


Pheidole nimba minorThe photomontage of a type minor is collated from http://www.antweb.org/specimenImages.do?code=casent0913738

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