Tetraponera natalensis (F Smith)

Type location South Africa (Pseudomyrma natalensis, F Smith, 1858b: 160, in Tetraponera, F. Smith, 1877b: 69; queen; Emery, 1895h: 22, worker); subspecies caffra from South Africa (Santschi, 1914e: 15, all forms), cuitensis from Angola (Forel, 1911d: 368, worker), obscurata from South Africa (Emery, 1895h: 22, worker; Arnold, 1916: 177, queen & male); unavailable names bulawayana from Zimbabwe (Forel, 1913a: 112, worker) and quaniama from Angola (Santschi, 1937d: 218, worker); all forms described (see Bolton, 1995) .

F Smith's (1858b) description of the queen, is at . Emery's (1895h) description of the worker, with that of obscurata, is at . Forel's (1911d) description of cuitensis, with usambarensis, is at and his (1913a) description of cuitensis var. bulawayana is at . Santschi's (1914e) description of caffra is at . Arnold (1916: 176) gave a straight translation of natalensis, this is at , his translation (1916: 177) of obscurata and caffra is at , and his translation (1916: 177) of cuitensis var. bulawayana is at . Santschi's (1937d) description of quaniama, is at .

Forel also defined a new variety usambarensis from Tanzania (Forel, 1911d: 367, worker; Santschi, 1914b: 70, queen) but this differs so much from the type; comes from a location 1000s of kilometres to the north; and, seems so nearly identical to Forel's description, two pages earlier, of Tetraponera prelli; that I have removed usambarensis to a junior synonym of prelli.

Smith (1876d) reported observations by J.M. Hutchison, at Weenen in South Africa, of the species making formicaria in the thorns of a species of acacia.