WHEELER: AUSTRALIAN ANTS. 49 
the long phylogenetic history of the ponerine subfamily. It is also 
probable that the very similar “dichthadiiform” females of the ants 
belonging to the subfamily Dorylinae have had a like independent 
origin and development. 
The larva of Onychomyrmex (Plate 1, fig. 7; Plate 2, fig. 1, 2), in 
the very distinct segmentation of the body and in the structure of 
the head, seems to be of a rather primitive type and resembles the 
larvae of the Dorylinae (Eciton) and lower Ponerinae (Acanthostichus, 
Cerapachys), but the larvae of ants have not been sufficiently studied 
to enable us to draw satisfactory conclusions concerning the phylo- 
genetic relationships of the various genera. 
A study of the worker Onychomyrmex certainly reveals a number 
of highly specialized characters. Such are particularly the shape of 
the mandibles, the vestigial condition of the palpi, the small size of the 
eyes, and the enlargement of the terminal joint, claws, and pulvilli of 
the middle and hind tarsi. The degenerate visual organs show that 
these ants belong to the hypogaeic series and that they pass their lives 
concealed in the logs which gradually decompose in the moist shade 
of the dense tropical jungle. The powerful, toothed mandibles, long 
sting and great hooked claws indicate that their possessors do not feed 
habitually on small feeble insects like termites, but on much larger 
creatures such as the larvae of passalids and scarabaeids and possibly 
on adult myriopods and scorpions. This I found to be the case in a 
colony of O. mjébergi, for when the log containing it was broken open, 
many of the workers were detected in the act of biting and stinging to 
death a huge lamellicorn beetle larva more than two inches in length, 
which they had just found in a cavity in the wood. It is not improba- 
ble that the colonies move from place to place in search of their prey, 
like the colonies of the subterranean Dorylinae (Eciton coecum and 
Dorylus), which they very closely resemble in behavior, color, sculp- 
ture, and pilosity. 
The species of Onychomyrmex are far from common even in Queens- 
land, and the few colonies I secured were the reward of many hours of 
search and of the destruction of many old logs in places where I was 
frequently attacked by land-leeches and saw quite a number of the 
deadly black snakes (Pseudechis porphyriacus). Perhaps it would be 
possible for the collector to attract colonies by placing large beetle or 
cossid larvae in holes in the rotten logs usually found along the paths 
through the “scrub.” 
