46 BT lletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



honor of Mr. F. P. Dodd, the well-known observer and collector of 

 Queensland insects. I was so fortunate as to discover the females 

 of mjobergi and doddi and the larva of the former species. The female 

 Onychom^Tmex is of such an unusual type that it seems advisable to 

 revise the genus in such a way that some of my Australian friends may 

 be able to recognize all the known species at a glance and to make 

 additions to our knowledge concerning their habits. 



Unfortunately the male Onychomyrmex is still unknown and will 

 have to be found before the precise status of the genus in the sub- 

 family Ponerinae can be ascertained. Forel does, indeed, describe a 

 male ponerine taken by Mjoberg as that of 0. hcdicyi, but he says that 

 he does this "with a very great interrogation point." He has, in fact, 

 no evidence that the specimen is an Onychomyrmex, except the very 

 inconclusive fact that it was taken in the same locality (Malanda, 

 Queensland) as the worker of hcdleyi. I deem it advisable, therefore, 

 to assume that the male is unknown till it is actually taken in nests 

 with the workers. Such observations as I was able to make on the 

 habits of the three species of Onychomyrmex are recorded below in 

 connection with the taxonomic descriptions. So far as at present 

 known all the species of the genus are confined to Queensland, and all 

 live in red rotten logs in the tropical rain-forest (" scrub ").^ 



Onychomyrmex Emery. 



Emery, Arm. Soc. ent. Belg., 1895, 39, p. 349; Genera Insectorum, 

 1911, fasc. 118, p. 96; Forel, Arkiv. f. zool., 1915, 9, p. 2. 



Worker. Small, slender, monomorphic. Mandibles rather long, 

 narrow at the base, broadest in the middle, with long, curved, acute 

 tips, their inner borders armed with a number of unequal teeth, some 

 of which, near the middle of the series, are directed backward. Both 

 the maxillary and labial palpi very short, 2-jointed. Clypeus very 

 short, abrupt, with rounded, entire anterior border beset with a regular 

 row of minute teeth. Frontal carinae small, prominent, closely 

 approximated, enlarged and dilated anteriorly, separated by a very 

 narrow groove. Frontal groove lacking. Eyes very small, consisting 

 of about 6 or 8 ommatidia, situated behind the middle of the head. 



1 Emery believed that the Anommi erratica of Frederick Smith from New Guinea 

 might be an Onychomyrmex, but the description mentions none of the distinctive 

 characters of this genus and was, perhaps, drawn from an Aenictiis. 



