46 Psyche [April-June 



THE SUBFAMILIES OF FORMICIDtE, AND OTHER 

 TAXONOMIC NOTES.i 



By William Morton Wheeler. 



A comparison of the seventh volume of Dalla Torre's "Catalogus 

 Hymenopterorum," which summarizes what was known of the 

 classification of the Formicidse down to 1890, with any very recent 

 monograph of these insects, gives the impression that there has 

 been no change in expert opinion concerning the limits of the 

 family and its subfamilies during the past thirty years. Dalla 

 Torre recognizes five subfamilies, the Dorylinse, Ponerinse, Myrmi- 

 cinse, Dolichoderinse and Camponotinse and the same groups are 

 retained in Emery's contributions to the "Genera Insectorum" 

 (1910-'13), so far as published, and in his recent sketch of the 

 classification of the Myrmicinae (1914). Between the appearance 

 of the " Catalogus " and the works just mentioned, however, Emery, 

 who has shown greater interest than other myrmecologists in the 

 definition of taxonomic categories above the rank of the genus, 

 proposed an additional subfamily, the Pseudomyrminse in 1899, 

 and in 1895 transferred a group of genera, comprising the tribe 

 Cerapachyini, from the Ponerinse, where it had been placed by 

 Forel in 1893, to the Dorylinse. After Forel and I had objected 

 to this proceeding, Emery, in the "Genera Insectorum" (1913) 

 returned the Cerapachyini to the Ponerinse, but gave them the 

 rank of a section, the Prodorylinse. He had long since reunited 

 the Pseudomyrminse with the Myrmicinse. In his most recent 

 sketch of the classification of this subfamily (1914) he unites the 

 tribes Metaponini and Pseudomyrmini as the first section, the 

 Promyrminse, and places all the other tribes in a second section, 

 the Eumyrmicinse. Thus in 1920 the five subfamilies have again 

 acquired the limits which they had in 1890. 



During the past year a study of ant-larvse, representing more 

 than a hundred genera and many subgenera of all five subfamilies, 

 has convinced me that Emery was right in 1899, when he regarded 

 the Pseudomyrminse as constituting an independent subfamily. I 

 am also of the opinion that the Cerapachyini should be removed 



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

 University. No. 169. 



