PSYCHE 
VOL. XXX. DECEMBER 1923 ‘ No. 6 
ANTS OF THE GENERA MYOPIAS AND 
ACANTHOPONERA.i 
By William Morton Wheeler. 
A recent study of the Australian ants collected some years 
ago by Mr. A. M. Lee and myself has led me to revise the Pone- 
rine genera Myopias and Acanthoponera, two groups of more 
than usual interest on account of their singular geographical 
distribution. The former genus was established by Roger^ more 
than 60 years ago for a Ceylonese ant, M. amhlyops, which 
has not been taken since, although considerable thorough 
collecting has been done in India and Ceylon. A second species 
was brought to light in New Guinea by L. Biro and described in 
1901 by Emery as M. crihricepsK A third species has now been 
discovered by Mr. Lea in Tasmania and is described in the sequel. 
The highly vestigial eyes in the workers of these ants show that 
they are subterranean in habit, but they must be extremely 
rare, since a total of only eleven specimens has been seen. Their 
recorded distribution is so discontinuous that we may regard 
them as vanishing relicts of forms very close to the direct ancestors 
of Trapeziopelta, a genus represented by a number of species in 
the East Indies and New Guinea. 
The distribution of Acanthoponera is even more interesting. 
It comprises two species in Australia, one in New Zealand and 
five in the Neotropical Region, from Chile, Argentina and 
Brazil to Central America and Mexico. All the American 
species occur in the southern portion of the range and the forms 
in Central America and Mexico are merely small varieties or 
subspecies which have strayed beyond the optimum environ- 
^Contributions from the Entorrological Laboratory of the Bussey Insti- 
tution, Harvard University, No. 230. 
^Berlin. Entom. Zeitschr. 5, 1861, p. 39. 
Mermeszetr. Euzet. 25, 1901, p, 156. 
