No. 2. The Ants of Alaska. 



CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE ENTOMOLOGICAL LABORATORY OF THE 



BUSSEY INSTITUTION, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, NO. 126. 

 BY WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER. 



OUR knowledge of the Formicidae of Alaska has been of very slow 

 growth, probably because most of the collectors who have ventured 

 into that extensive region have found ants too scarce and inconspicu- 

 ous to merit serious attention. In 1899 Prof. Trevor Kincaid, while 

 accompanying the Harriman Alaska Expedition, secured a number of 

 specimens of five species which were recorded by Pergande (Proc. 

 Wash. acad. sci., 1900, 2, p. 519-521) as Formica neorufibarbis Emery, 

 Lasius niger Linne subsp. sitkaensis Pergande, Leptothorax yankee 

 Emery var. kincaidi Pergande, Myrmica sabuleti Meinert var. lobifrons 

 Pergande and Myrmica sulcinodoides Emery. Three of these were 

 new to science, but unfortunately Pergande's descriptions of them are 

 inadequate and puzzling, and although the types (No. 5277-5279) 

 were cited as being in the U. S. N. M., Mr. S. A. Rohwer, after careful 

 search has been unable to find them, and I have failed to find any 

 cotypes in Pergande's private collection, which was acquired by the 

 Museum after his death. Within recent years I have recorded Myr- 

 mica brevinodis Emery var. alaskensis Wheeler, Formica fusca Linne 

 var. gelida Wheeler and Camponotus herculeanus Linne var. whymperi 

 Forel from Alaska. During the summer of 1916 Mr. J. A. Kusche 

 of Eldridge, California, kindly collected a considerable number of 

 ants for me in several Alaskan localities and in the adjacent Yukon 

 territory of British America. Among the material I find three forms 

 not hitherto recorded from these regions, so that the total known to 

 date is twelve. They represent, however, only seven species: Myr- 

 mica brevinodis, M. scabrinodis, Leptothorax acervorum, Lasius niger, 

 Formica sanguinea, F. fusca, and Camponotus herculeanus, all well- 

 known from the boreal portions of Europe and Asia, except Myrmica 

 brevinodis, which might, in fact, be regarded as a subspecies of the 

 Eurasian M. sulcinodis. Four of the varieties seem to be peculiar 

 to Alaska, but all the other forms range widely through British America 

 and southward into the United States along the higher slopes of the 

 Sierra-Cascade and Rocky Mountains. The specimens collected by 



