April-June, 1920 Bulletin Brooklyn Entomological Society 73 



fication, carried on a stalk sometimes several inches in length. 

 The swollen portion of this external stroma bears numerous asco- 

 carps or perithecia containing the spores, which are formed within 

 elongate cells, the asci. Some hundred spcies of Cordyceps are 

 known, all but two or three parasitic upon arthropods ; as a rule 

 they are but little particular in the choice of their host, the same 

 species often attacking members of different species, families, 

 or orders. 



Ten species of Cordyceps have been recorded from ants, as can 

 be seen from the appended bibliography ; but most of these were 

 found in the tropics. Cordyceps unilateralis (Tulasne), a rather 

 widely distributed parasite of many insects, is the only form 

 mentioned from ants in North America. Thaxter has recorded it 

 incidentally as growing on an ant which was not further specified 

 at the time, but, according to information kindly given to me by 

 Prof. Wheeler, was a Camponotus herculeanus (Linne) subsp. 

 pennsylvanicus (De Geer) from North Carolina.^ It has been 

 found on several other ants in South America and the East 

 Indies. The external part of this Cordyceps consists of a black, 

 very slender, thread-like stroma, 13 to 20 mm. long and }4 to ys 

 mm. thick at the base, feebly bent about or above the middle of 

 its length where it bears on one side the perithecia fused into a 

 subglobose head, i to 2 mm. in diameter, with rosette-like pro- 

 tuberances. 



Cordyceps Myrm,ecophila (Cesati) is a fungus of larger size 

 and has been frequently observed on ants, though it attacks also 

 various other insects. It is known from Europe (Italy, Finland), 

 Brazil and tropical Africa. In the Belgian Congo its host of pre- 

 dilection apparently is the common large ponerine ant, Palto- 

 thyreus tarsatus (Fabricius) . It is by no means rare to find dead 

 specimens of this ant firmly attached with the closed mandibles 

 to a leaf, a grass stalk or a stick, several inches or a few feet 

 above the ground, while a long-stalked Cordyceps protrudes from 

 the body. Though this position is often observed in ants that die 



1 Prof. Wheeler also informs me that unidentified Cordyceps are in 

 Prof. Thaxter's collection from the following ants : Camponotus hercu- 

 leanus subsp. pennsylvanicus var. novceboracensis (Fitch) from Maine and 

 C. abdominalis (Fabricius) from Trinidad. 



