THE AUSTRALIAN ANTS OF THE PONERINE TRIBE 



CERAPACHYINI.i 



By William Morton Wheeler. 

 Received, September 29, 1917. 



The Cerapachyini are of unusual interest to the myrmecologist, 

 because they represent one of the most primitive sections of the most 

 primitive subfamily of ants, the Ponerinse, and because they are so 

 closely related to the subfamily Dorylinse as to suggest that the latter 

 must have arisen from Cerapachyine ancestors. Owing, however, 

 to the fact that all the species of the tribe are rare and sporadic and 

 confined to warm countries, our knowledge of the habits and sexual 

 forms of the species and of their distribution is still very inadequate. 

 In a country like Australia which preserves such a large portion of 

 the ancient Mesozoic ant-fauna, we should expect to find the tribe 

 well represented in genera and species, and this proves to be true. 



The workers of the Cerapachyini are easily recognized by their 

 long, slender, jointed bodies; the petiole and postpetiole of the abdo- 

 men are distinct and in one of the genera (EtispJmictus) even the gastric 

 segments are marked off from one another by pronounced constric- 

 tions. The eyes are often lacking, the antennfe are robust and well 

 developed, the clypeus is very short and vertical, and the frontal 

 carinse are erect and closely approximated, so that the insertions of 

 the antennae are exposed. The thoracic sutures are very feeble or 

 entirely absent. In the males the mandibles are well developed, the 

 genital appendages are retracted and there are no cerci. The females 

 are sometimes worker-like and apterous, though possessing eyes or 

 both eyes and ocelli {Nofhosphinctus, Euspkinctus); in other species 

 the thorax has distinctly differentiated sclerites and bears wings, 

 though the mesonotum and scutellum are very small; in still others 

 the thorax has differentiated sclerites but bears no wings {Cerapachys, 

 Phyracaces). The larva of only one species has been described, that 

 of the Texan Cerapachys (Parasyscia) augustoe Wheeler (Psyche 

 1903, pp. 205-209). In the present paper I have sketched the larva 



1 Contributions from the Entomological Laboratory of the Bussey Institu- 

 tion, Harvard University, No. 129. 



