The Ants of Africa
Genus Plectroctena
Plectroctena hastifera (Santschi)
{Plectroctena hastifera} {plectroctena hastifera}

Plectroctena hastifera (Santschi) (new spelling in Bolton, 1995)

return to key {link to the Hymenoptera Name Server} Type location Ghana (Cacopone hastifer, Santschi, 1914d: 325, illustrated, worker) collected at Aburi by F. Silvestri; worker only described; listed as hastifer by Bolton (1974b) .

Santschi's (1914d) description is at {original description}. Bolton's modern description (1974b) is at {original description}

WORKER - Medium sized, TL 10.9; mandibles without a basal tooth, their apices swollen. Dorsal surfaces of head alitrunk, petiole and first two gastral segments with numerous erect hairs. Anterior and dorsal surfaces of petiole confluent, meeting through a smooth curve, not separated by an angle. Dorsum of head coarsely punctate, the diameter of the punctures greater than the distance separating them. First gastral tergite without an anterior transverse groove. Propodeal laminae meeting dorsally, continuous around the declivity. Colour deep red (Bolton, 1974b: 320, illustrated, mandible and petiole).

A subterranean species, with very small eyes, known solely from two specimens from Ghana, the holotype and a single worker at CRIG (D. Leston) (Bolton, 1974b). Belshaw & Bolton (1994b) referred to it but did not find any in leaf litter samples.


{Plectroctena hastifera}The photomontage is collated from http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=casent0102917.

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© 2007, 2008 - Brian Taylor CBiol FIBiol FRES
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