ANNALS 



OF ^/OA/a. 



U! l~ 



The Entomological Society of America 



Volume XII SEPTEMBER. 1919 Number 3 



THE ANTS OF THE GENUS METAPONE FOREL.* 



By William Morton Wheeler. 



The singular genus Metapone was established by Forel, in 

 191 If, for an ant from Ceylon, M. greeni, characterized by a 

 peculiar Ponerine habitus (resemblance to Cylindromyrmex and 

 Simopone), scrobed head, supposedly 11-jointed antennae in the 

 male as well as in the worker and female, one-jointed maxillary 

 and three-jointed labial palpi, terminally spinose or dentate 

 middle and hind tibiae and metatarsi and what he regarded as 

 an unusually slender, strongly segmented, non-tuberculate 

 larva, with long sparse hairs, and stout mandibles, and pupating 

 without spinning a cocoon. He says of this genus, which he 

 made the type of a new tribe, Metaponini : "I regard it as 

 constituting a special section, which I place provisionally 

 among the Ponerinae and which I call Promyrmicinas. Perhaps 

 later it will be necessary to transfer it to the Myrmicinas. 

 I reserve my opinion in regard to this matter, " etc. 



A year later, EmeryJ examined M. greeni and its larva more 

 critically and found that alcoholic specimens of the latter when 

 properly softened and expanded had the usual shape of body, 

 head and mouthparts of the Myrmicine larva and were furnished 

 with long, serially arranged, hooked, dorsal hairs unlike any 

 known Ponerine larvae, but like many larval Myrmicinas He 

 concluded that Metapone is a true Myrmicine ant and says: "It 

 seems to me that the comparison of Metapone with Cylindro- 

 myrmex and Simopone on the one hand and Sima on the other. 



* Contribution from the Entomological Laboratory of the Bussey Institution. 

 Harvard University. No. 159. 



t Sur le genre Metapone n. g. nouveau groupe des Formicides et sur quelques 

 autres formes nouvelles. Rev. Suisse Zool. 19, 1911, pp. 445-451, 1 PI. 



X Etudes sur les Myrmicinae. Ann. Soc. Ent. Belg. 56, 1912, pp. 94-105, 5 Figs. 



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