98 



W. A. SANDS 



Soldiers. Major soldier : head capsule orange-yellow to chestnut brown, nose ferruginous 

 orange to pitch black with very short red tip. Antennae orange-yellow to orange. Pronotum 

 yellow-brown to brown, meso- and metanota yellow to yellow-brown, legs yellow. Abdominal 

 tergites yellow-brown to brown, sternites pale yellow to yellow. 



Head capsule in plan view short oval to circular, nose weakly conical. In profile distinctly 

 concave, with back of head rising from base of nose in front of antennal socket, and rounded ; 

 nose distinctly shorter than rest of head capsule, measuring from hind margin of antennal 

 socket, angle of nose cone, 5-12 degrees ; antennae 13-14 segmented, two out of three specimens 

 with 14, many of those with 13 have basal segments partially subdivided, proportions variable. 

 Head setae confined to nose tip, these few, short, and fine apart from 4 apical setae. 



Abdominal tergites apart from posterior one or two almost devoid of setae ; sternites with 

 sparse scattered short backwardly directed setae about half length of longer setae on posterior 

 margins, approximately in longitudinal rows, 2 or 3 on each side of mid-line, directed down- 

 wards and slightly forwards. 



Minor soldiers : colour as major soldiers. Antennae 12-13 segmented, proportions of basal 

 segments variable. 



Measurements (Major soldiers, 64 specimens from 21 localities, minor soldiers, 14 specimens 

 from 8 localities) in millimetres. 



Major Soldier 



Range 



Mean 



Head length to tip of nose 



2-1 1-2 -93 



2-47 



Head capsule width 



1-18-1-81 



149 



Depth of head capsule . 



0-86-1-25 



1 07 



Width of pronotum 



0-61-0-84 



0-72 



Length of pronotum 



0-29-0-43 



036 



Length of hind tibia 



1-54-1-96 



1-72 



Minor Soldier 



Range 



Mean 



Head length to tip of nose 



1 -61-1-94 



i-8o 



Head capsule width 



0-75-1-06 



089 



Depth of head capsule . 



0-57-0-82 



o-66 



Width of pronotum 



0-47-0-61 



054 



Length of pronotum 



0-22-0-25 



024 



Length of hind tibia 



I -22-1 -68 



1 41 



Variation. The soldier caste is not 



always clearly divided int 



" major " and " minor 



categories, intermediates being found ir 



1 the largest colonies. 





Sjostedt (1924) in describing T. gratiosits referred only to the major soldier, 

 although the material from the type colony included the imago which he described 

 subsequently (1926). The lectotype of this species therefore should be selected from 

 among the soldier syntypes. T. carbo was described immediately after T. gratiosus 

 on the same page of the same paper, from specimens from the same locality. In this 

 case the imago alone was described, and the soldiers stated to be very near T. 

 gratiosus. The description of the imago is clearly not a Trinervitermes, and the 

 specimens were identified by Dr. A. E. Emerson (in unpublished notes) as Cubitermes 

 minitabundus (Sjostedt). Sjostedt placed the species in Trinervitermes on the basis 

 of the soldier caste, however, and the lectotype would therefore again be selected 

 from among the soldier syntypes. 



The resemblance between T. gratiosus and its partially sympatric congener T. 

 bettonianus was discussed in an earlier paper (Sands, 1957 : 19). It also resembles 

 the " West African " T. oeconomus and shorter-nosed paler soldiers of T. trinervius. 

 T. oeconomus is distinguishable in the imago by the more pilose head capsule, less 



