OBSERVATIONS ON GIGANTIOPS DESTRUCTOR. 187 



French Guiana (Jelski). 



British Guiana: Kaieteur Falls, Tukheit, and Tumatumari (F. 

 E. Lutz) ; Penal Settlement, Bartica District (W. Beebe) ; Kar- 

 tabo and Kalacoon (Wheeler). 



Pern: Callanga (Staudinger). 



Bolivia: Rio Beni (L. Balzan). 



These localities show that Gigantiops has a very limited range 

 compared with many Neotropical ants, since it is confined to a 

 strip of South America east of the Andes and extending from 

 about 10 north to 10 south of the equator. 1 



Gigantiops (Fig. i) is a common ant in the forested portions of 

 British Guiana, preferring shady places rather free from under- 

 growth and spending most of its time on the ground, running over 

 the dead leaves. It occurs singly, as stated by previous observers, 

 and really belongs to a forest-floor ant-fauna comprising also 

 Neoponera apicalis Latr., obscuricornis Emery and cornniit'ata 

 Roger, Mesoponera constricta Mayr, Pachycondyla crassinoda La- 

 treille and liar pax Fabr., Paraponera clavata Fabr., and Ectatomma 

 quodridcns Fabr. Those who are interested in mimicry will ob- 

 serve that in its form, the dull black color of its body and yellow 

 antennal tips, Gigantiops bears such a striking resemblance to 

 N. apicalis and obscuricornis that the latter might be regarded as 



i I find a note by von Motschulsky in a letter published in his " fitudes 

 Entomologiques " (1855) and referred to in the "Stettiner Entomologische 

 Zeitung " (1859), which seems to apply to Gigantiops. Speaking of the insects 

 which he observed at Obispo, Panama, he says-: "I observed a lot of ants of 

 diverse and bizarre form, among others one bearing the closest resemblance to 

 a spider, especially to a Salh'cns, and as it also has the ability to leap, I have 

 named it Salticonwrpha nigra." There are two objections to accepting the 

 name Salticonwrpha as antedating Gigantiops: first, there is no record of this 

 insect's having been taken in Central America or even in Colombia, and 

 second, von Motschulsky may have seen a Psendomynna gracilis Fabr., which 

 resembles a black Attid spider in form and color, and have mistaken its 

 erratic movements for leaps. The well-known arachnologist, E. Simon (in 

 Emery, "Voyage de M. E. Simon" (Dec., i887-Avril. 1888). Formicides, 

 Ann. Soc. Ent. France 1890, p. 65 nota) noticed that " all the species of the 

 genus Psendomynna reproduce exactly the forms and colors of the spiders of 

 the genus Sirnonella Peckh. (Attidas) and the resemblance is equally striking 

 in their gait." For the present it seems advisable, therefore, either to treat 

 Salticonwrpha nigra Motsch, as a noiucn uttdum or to include it with a query 

 in the synonymy of Gigantiops destructor Fabr. 



