No. 5. — The Ants of the Phillips Expedition to Palestine during 1914- 



CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE ENTOMOLOGICAL LABORATORY OF THE 

 BUSSEY INSTITUTION, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, NO. 107. 



By W. M. Wheeler and W. M. Mann. 



The junior author, while -accompanying Dr. John C. Phillips on a 

 recent zoological expedition to Palestine and the adjacent countries 

 for the Museum of Comparative Zoology, succeeded in amassing quite 

 a collection of ants. As many collections of these insects have been 

 made from time to time in Egypt and Asia Minor and have been care- 

 fully described in numerous papers by Ern. Andre, Emery, Forel, 

 Mayr, and Ruzsky, it seemed improbable that another collection 

 would contain anything new. After the specimens were mounted 

 and examined, however, we were surprised to find among them a new 

 and peculiar species of Deromyrma and a few undescribed varieties 

 and subspecies of well-known Mediterranean species. We decided, 

 therefore, to publish a list of all the forms collected, together with 

 such field-notes as seemed interesting. 



FORMICIDiE. 



1. Ponera eduardi Forel. ^ 9 (ergatoid).— Baniyas, Syria. 



2. Sima bifovcolata Mayr var. syriaca, var. nov. 



Worker. Agreeing very closely with the typical form described 

 from Delagoa Bay and Zanzibar, except in the following characters: — 

 the tibiee have no suberect hairs, the mandibles have only three instead 

 of four or five teeth, and the petiolar node is semicircular in profile. 

 The tip of the gaster is not brown. The peculiar paired granular pits 

 on the occiput seem to be quite as distinctly developed as in the type. 



Several workers found running on plants at Wady Gazelle, Sinai 

 Peninsula. The typical form has been recorded by Mayr only as far 

 north as the White Nile where it was taken by Tragardh. 



3. Aphaenogaster splendida ^oger. y — Rasheya, Syria; in damp, 

 shady places. 



