14 



the australian ant-genus m yr m eco rh ync hus 

 (Ern. Andre) and its Position in the Sub- 

 family CAMPONOTINAE.i> 



By William Morton Wheeler. 

 (Communicated by Arthur M. Lea.) 

 [Read November 9, 1916.] 



Plate I. 



Twenty years ago the late Ernest Andre founded the 

 genus Myrmecorhynchus for the reception of a singular Cam- 

 ponotine ant, M. emeryi, which he described from a unique 

 worker, measuring 3 mm., taken in the Alps of Victoria. < 2) 

 Two years later Emery < 3 ^ received a specimen of the same ant 

 from Mr. Tepper, of the Museum of South Australia, and 

 as it was larger than Andre's specimen (4'5 mm.) and had a 

 broader head and traces of ocelli, he naturally concluded that 

 it was the major worker of the species of which Andre's 

 specimen represented the minor. During December, 1914, I 

 found under a large stone on a roadside at Enoggera, near 

 Brisbane, Queensland, what I now know to have been a small 

 colony cf Myrmecorhynchus. It comprised only a few 

 workers, all of the same size as those reported by Andre and 

 Emery. Unfortunately I have not succeeded, since my 

 return to the United States, in finding the few specimens 

 which I secured. They were evidently mixed with and lost 

 among a great many specimens of Iridomyrmex, Melophorus, 

 and other genera bottled on what proved to be a very hasty 

 excursion. The authorities of the Museum of South Aus- 

 tralia, however, have recently sent me a series of workers 

 and larvae from a Myrmecorhynchus colony discovered by 

 Mr. H. B. White at Windsor, South Australia. These 

 workers are of three different types, ranging from 2'5 to 

 6'5 mm. The smallest, corresponding with Andre's type 

 specimen, is, therefore, the worker minima, those measuring 

 4-4*5 mm. are mediae, and correspond with Emery's speci- 

 men ; while the maxima, hitherto unknown, has a much 

 larger and broader head, with more distinct ocelli. It seems 

 advisable, therefore, to describe and figure the different forms 

 and to rewrite the generic and specific diagnoses, in order 

 that Australian entomologists may more easily recognize this 



(i) Contributions from the Entomological Laboratorj 7 of the 

 Bussey Institution, Harvard University, No. 120. 



(2) Fourmis Nouvelles d'Asie et d'Australie, Rev. d'Ent. 15, 

 1896, pp. 253 and 254. 



(3) Descrizioni di Formiche nuove malesi e australa&iane ; note 

 Sinonimiche. Rend. Accad. Sc, Bologna, N.S. 2, 1898, p. 237, 

 figs. 9 and 10. 



