Platythyrea gracillima Wheeler

Type location Zaïre (Wheeler, 1922: 59, illustrated, profile and full-face view); worker only described (see Bolton, 1995) .

Wheeler described it as:
WORKER - TL 9 mm; very slender, head long and narrow, widest forward of the small eyes; thorax with nearly straight, horizontal dorsum; petiole, laterally compressed, twice as long as broad and with markedly concave posterior face. Slightly shining, mandibles more so, finely and densely punctate, with a few larger but very shallow and indistinct punctures on the head, thorax and petiole. Hairs absent, pubescence yellowish gray, very short and fine. Overall black; appendages and first gastral segment red; remainder of gaster yellow.
Found in the stomach of a toad.

Brown (1975: 52) noted that the type specimen was TL 10.7 mm, HL 2.20 including the clypeus, HW 1.56, SL 2.46; scape surpassing occiput by 0.94 mm when held straight back; palp formula 4,4; posterior border of head transverse, straight, except for very slight median concavity; clypeus convex, anterior border strongly rounded. He provided the illustration right of the petiole of the type specimen and described it as a member of a small ill-defined group of species - all with a gracile (i.e. slender) head and body; long stout antennal scapes; mesally convex clypeus; slit-shaped propodeal spiracles; unarmed propodeum; long, narrow petiole node with sharp, strongly projecting posterodorsal margin. Other members are all from outside Africa, in Southeast Asia.

Reported from Ghana cocoa leaf litter at the Mampong Cemetery farm (Room, 1971), seen by Brown, who has the date 20 May 1970.

The photomontage is collated from the AMNH Congo Expedition website. The photographs of the holotype specimen were taken by Brian Fisher as part of the VCA project at the Califormia Academy of Sciences.