OBSERVATIONS ON GIGANTIOPS DESTRUCTOR 

 FABRICIUS AND OTHER LEAPING ANTS. 1 



WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER. 



In any study of the very exuberant ant-fauna of the Neotropical 

 Region one can not fail to be impressed by the striking contrast 

 between certain genera like Eclton, Pseudoinynna, Solcnopsis, 

 Creutatogaster, Cryptocercus, Aztcca, and Camponotus, each rep- 

 resented by a large number of variable species, and genera like 

 Paraponera, Acanthognathus, Daccton, Blcpharidatta, Stcgom\r- 

 mc.r, and Gigantiops, each represented by a single, very stable 

 species. Of course, such monotypic groups may be regarded 

 either as very ancient, embracing during some former age many 

 species of which only one has survived, or as single species which, 

 after acquiring generic status in the remote past, have since under- 

 gone little or no modification. The individuals of a species repre- 

 senting a monotypic genus may be either very rare or local, mere 

 relicts of a bygone age, or prominent and ubiquitous over larger 

 geographical areas. This is true of such ants as Paraponera 

 clai'ata Fabr. and Gigantiops destructor,, which I have recently had 

 abundant opportunity to study in the jungle about the Tropical 

 Laboratory of the New York Zoological Society at Kartabo, Brit- 

 ish Guiana. As the latter species is the more imperfectly known, 

 I have singled it out for special consideration. 



The name Gigantiops destructor conjures up visions of a huge- 

 eyed, insatiable monster, a kind of Cyclopean insect-jaguar. Fa- 

 bricius, when he first described the insect in 1804 as Formica 

 destructor, certainly knew nothing of its behavior and probably 

 gave it what seemed to him an appropriate specific name for any 

 ant measuring a centimeter in length. More than half a century 

 later ('58) Frederick Smith received specimens taken by Bates at 

 Ega, Brazil, and believed them to represent a new species which he 

 described as Formica solitaria. The following note was appended 



1 Contributions from the Entomological Laboratory of the Bussey Institu- 

 tion, Harvard University. No. 177. 



1 8s 



