Pachycondyla (Bothroponera) pumicosa (Roger)
Type location South Africa (Ponera pumicosa,
Roger, 1860: 290, worker; Forel, 1901f: 344, male, as Pachycondyla
(Bothroponea) pumicosa); subspecies sculpturata ( Pachycondyla
(Bothroponea) sculpturata, Santschi, 1912b: 151, queen;
reduced to variety of pumicosa by Wheeler, 1922: 772;
given as a subspecies in Bolton, 1995: 308) from Zimbabwe;
all forms described
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Roger's (1860) description is at
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Arnold (1915) gave a translation, this is at
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Forel's (1901f) description of the male is at
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Santschi's (1912b) description of sculpturata is at
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WORKER - Head, thorax, petiole and postpetiole coarsely
punctate, punctate-rugulose or striated; but mandibles smooth,
sparsely punctate; petiolar node truncated behind; gaster more or
less shining.
Wheeler (1922) listed it also from Cameroun (Mundame, L.
Conradt), plus several southern Africa locations. |
There is a puzzle here. Roger (1860) gave the size of the worker
as TL 10.5 mm. In Arnold (1915) the size is given as 12-13 mm.
From the scale, the specimen shown below is about the Roger size,
so it seems reasonable to assume Roger's size was about right.
As for the status of sculpturata, Santschi (1912b) whose
descriptions, in this case quite complete, were usually sound,
notes a number of apparently significant differences to pumicosa.
Santschi remarks on the shape of the clypeus and sculpturation of
the gaster as easily separating the species. His description also
has the queen as with densely and entirely striated mandibles. In
the descriptions and the photomontage specimen the mandibles are
smooth and shining in pumicosa. Curiously, Arnold (1915: &
1952a: 460) in dealing with Bothroponera species, in the
later paper he treats this as a genus, never mentioned sculpturata.
Wheeler (1922: 772) is a listing in his catalogue of African ants
and there is no evidence that he actually examined material other
than the Congo expedition ants. In his introduction to the
catalogue, he refers to Dr. Bequaert as doing much of the work and
literature search (Wheeler, 1922: 711) . Moreover, Wheeler listed
"var. berthoudi (Forel)" under pumicosa
but that now is placed under P.
strigulosa. |
The photomontage is collated from