Paedalgus termitolestes Wheeler

Type location Zaïre (Wheeler, 1918c: 301, illustrated, worker; Wheeler, 1922: 177); worker only described (Bolton, 1995, who curiously failed to correct the reference to his own 1969 description of a male, now regarded as distinctus - see above) .

Wheeler's (1922) description is -

WORKER. Length 1 mm. Head subrectangular, a little longer than broad, nearly as broad in front as behind, with feebly rounded sides and feebly excavated posterior border. Eyes very small, situated at the anterior third of the head. Mandibles rather narrow, with four subequal teeth. Clypeus convex in the middle, bicarinate, with the anterior border projecting and truncated in the middle, narrow on the sides. Antennae robust, scapes reaching to the second third of the sides of the head; funicular joints 2 to 6 subequal, much broader than long, together but little longer than the first joint; basal joint of club slightly longer than broad, less than one-third as long as the apical, which is nearly as long as the remainder of the funiculus. Thorax narrower and somewhat shorter than the head, broad in front, narrowed in the propodeal region, with subangular humeri; its dorsal surface in profile straight and horizontal to the base of the sloping, very bluntly angular propodeum, without promesonotal and metanotal sutures; the propodeum declivity on each side with a low, subtriangular, vesiculate lamina. Petiole with a short, stout peduncle, its node high, rounded, about one and one-half times as broad as long, transversely elliptical from above. Postpetiole smaller than the petiole, its node much lower, only a little broader, a little less than twice as broad as long. Gaster elliptical, its anterior border concave in the middle. Legs rather short.

Head, thorax, petiole, and postpetiole opaque, covered with shallow, saucer- shaped punctures, arranged in regular rows on the head and each bearing in its centre a short hair. Upper surfaces of petiolar and postpetiolar nodes smoother and somewhat shining. Gaster and legs very smooth and shining, with minute, sparse, piligerous punctures. Mandibles and antennae subopaque, the former sparsely and coarsely punctate. Hairs yellow, short, bristly, suberect, longer on the clypeus and gaster. There is a long bristle at each humeral angle, one on each side of the mesonotum near the base of the propodeum and one on each side of the petiolar and postpetiolar nodes. Brownish yellow; legs and antennae a little paler; mandibles and clypeus a little darker.
Described from numerous specimens taken from a single colony at Malela by Lang, Chapin, and Bequaert in a mound-shaped termitarium (illustrated left and "click").

Bolton & Belshaw's modern description (1993) is at