SUBFAMILY MYRMICINAE - Genus Melissotarsus
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The Ants of Africa SUBFAMILY MYRMICINAE - Genus Melissotarsus |
| Contents - Myrmicinae - MYRMICINAE Introduction |
In Tribe MELISSOTARSINI.
Diagnostic Features - Antennae 6-segmented with a 2-segmented club, scapes very short. Eyes well developed, noticeably longer than broad. Dorsum of alitrunk smoothly convex in profile, propodeum unarmed. Postpetiole very broadly attached to the gaster. Coxa of middle and hind legs very large. Basal segment of tarsi enlarged, remaining segments small.
Emery's (1877b) genus definition is at
.
Arnold (1916: 188) gave an annotated translation of the genus description;
this is at 
.
Described by Bolton (1973a) as being uncommon, nesting under the bark of
trees, usually some distance above ground, and rarely found outside the
nest during the day. The extreme case of restricted nesting was reported
by Delage-Darchen (1972) for Melissotarsus weissi which she
studied (as titubans) in the Ivory Coast. Bolton (1982)
synonymised Delage-Darchen's material with beccarii but in Bolton
(1995) the synonymy was changed to being with weissi, see below.
From examination of the written descriptions and illustrations the matter
seems far from clearly resolved to me. The full text of Bolton's revision
can be seen at 
.
Belshaw & Bolton (1994) noted that two species were known from Ghana, both of which tunnel in living wood.
Key to Afrotropical species (from Bolton, 1982):
| 1 | 
Almost totally lacking erect hairs; head and alitrunk shiny
reddish-brown, posteiole yellow, gaster shiny black;TL 2.0 mm; |
Benin - new species Benin 8 |
| -- | With quite abundant, fine erect hairs; essentially unicolourous | 2 |
| 2 |  In
dorsal view, anterior margin of pronotum rounding evenly into the
anterior declivity; scapes strongly expanded apically; TL 2.3-3.3 mm;
dull yellowish brown to dark yellow |
pan-African - beccarii |
| -- | In dorsal view, anterior margin of pronotum with a sharp angle at transition to anterior declivity | 3 |
| 3 |  Sides
of alitrunk meeting dorsum in a fairly well defined angle, alitrunk
colour reddish brown; head much narrower anteriorly; scapes widening
progressively from about first quarter; TL 2.3-3.0 mm |
West Africa & Congo Basin - weissi |
| -- |  Sides
of alitrunk rounding bluntly into the dorsum, alitrunk colour yellow to
yellowish-brown; anterior margin of clypeus with a quite dense even row
of fairly long fine hairs; TL 2.5-3.4 mm |
pan-African - emeryi |
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MYRMICINAE Introduction | © 2007 - Brian Taylor CBiol
FIBiol FRES 11, Grazingfield, Wilford, Nottingham, NG11 7FN, U.K. |
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