1916} Wheeler — An Anomalous Blind Worker Ant 143 



the ants you sent me with F. Smith's types (two workers on one 

 card, one large, one medium) of Solenopsis scrvissima at the British 

 Museum on Saturday and they agree perfectly in every way. The 

 types were taken by H. W. Bates at Para." There can be no doubt, 

 therefore, that Forel's pylades is merely a synonym of scevissima 

 Smith. 



Forel disagrees with me further on the rank of this form, main- 

 taining that it should be regarded as a distinct species and not as 

 a subspecies of geminata, because the polymorphism of the worker 

 is very feeble, owing to the complete absence in the colonies of 

 any large-headed forms like those of geminata. This is a matter 

 of personal opinion. I called attention to the fact that two of 

 our North American forms, maniosa Wheeler and xyloni ISIac- 

 Cook are in this respect intermediate between sorvissima and gemi- 

 nata, and I may add that the Brazilian form medusa, recently 

 described by Mann, is even more polymorphic than geminata since 

 its largest workers have the head greatly enlarged and flaring in 

 front, with very strongly curved mandibles. If savissima is ele- 

 vated to specific rank, these forms should also have the same status, 

 but in my opinion they may all be regarded as so many subspecies 

 of a single variable species. I admit that it might be more logical 

 to include aurea Wheeler as still another subspecies, with amhly- 

 chila Wheeler as its variety. Owing to the great accumulation of 

 forms in this section of the genus Solenopsis within recent years I 

 am not altogether averse to regarding sa-vissima, geminata, maniosa 

 xyloni, electra, medusa and aurea as so many different, though very 

 closely allied, species. 



AN ANOMALOUS BLIND WORKER ANT. 



By William Morton Wheeler. 



Several years ago Prof. C. F. Baker sent me from Catalina 

 Island, Calif., a number of ants which I described as Aphoe- 

 nogaster patruelis Forel var. bakeri. Later he gave me a vial of 

 additional specimens from the same colony. While mounting 

 these I detected among them a single eyeless worker, which seemed 

 to be worth describing and figuring as, to my knowedge, nothing 

 like it has been seen in the genus Aphanogaster nor, indeed, in any 



