124 Psyche [October 



A SINGULAR NEOTROPICAL ANT {PSEUDOMYRMA 

 FILIFORM IS FABRICIUS).^ 



By William Morton Wheeler. 



In his "Systema Piezatorum," published in 1804, Fabricius 

 described a remarkable neotropical ant as Formica filiformis, in 

 the single sentence: "Formica elongata, filiformis, flava, abdominis 

 basi nigricante, petioli binodi." In a second sentence, after the 

 citation of the locality: "Habitat in America meridionale. Dom. 

 Smidt, Mus. Dom. de Sehestedt," he reworded the description, with 

 the addition of the adjective "parvum." The description un- 

 doubtedly refers to a dealated female specimen and not to a worker, 

 as stated by Dalla Torre in his "Catalogus Hymeiiopterorum" 

 (Vol. 7, 1893, p. 56). 



In 1855 Frederick Smith described all three phases of the same 

 ant from specimens taken by H. W. Bates at Villa Nova, Brazil, 

 but named it Pseudomyrma cephalica. Smith was greatly inter- 

 ested in the ants of the genus Pseudomyrma and the ant under 

 consideration seems to have been a particular favorite with him, 

 for he published more figures of it than of any other species. What 

 interested him most was undoubtedly the very aberrant character 

 of the female, especially of its head, for in all other species of Pseudo- 

 myrma the female is very much like the worker. Though brief 

 his description of all three phases of filiformis is clear, and his draw- 

 ings though schematic enable one to recognize the species without 

 difficulty. 



Since the time of Frederick Smith myrmecological literature 

 contains no unequivocal reference to the worker of Fabricius' 

 species either under the name oi filiformis or of cephalica. This is 

 because Forel, in the Biologia Centrali-Americana (1899-1900), 

 redescribed and figured the worker from Guatemala as Ps. hicon- 

 vexa and continued to cit^ it under that name till 1912 when he 

 published the latest reference I have seen of the insect. I am cer- 

 tain of the specific identity of biconvexa with filiformis, because 

 during the winter of 1911-1912 I found two fine colonies in Guate- 

 mala, each containing, not only numerous females and males 



1 Contributions from the Entomological Laboratory of the Bussey Institution, Harvard 

 University, No. 16L 



