1935] 
Australian Ant Genus Mayriella 
151 
THE AUSTRALIAN ANT GENUS MAYRIELLA FOREL 
By William Morton Wheeler 
Biological Laboratories, Harvard University 
The primitive Meranopline genus Mayriella was estab- 
lished by Forel more than thirty years ago for a minute 
worker ant, M. abstinens , taken by Gilbert Turner in 
Queensland . 1 Since that time, except for brief considera- 
tion in Emery’s volume on the Myrmicinse in Wytsman’s 
“Genera Insectorum” and citation in a few faunal lists, 
the insect has remained unnoticed . 2 This neglect is due 
no doubt to its rare or very local occurrence and diminu- 
tive size. I find in my collection only a small number of 
specimens which are clearly referable to Mayriella, but 
they belong to two species. One of them is a worker of an 
undesoribed species, another a cotype of abstinens received 
from Prof. Forel. There are also specimens of two sub- 
species of this form and the series of one of them com- 
prises several females. The male Mayriella, unfortunately, 
is still unknown. In the following pages I include descrip- 
tions and figures of these forms, which are of interest in 
connection with two other primitive genera of Meranoplini, 
namely Willowsiella and Romblonella, which I have recently 
described . 3 It seems advisable also to amplify Forel’s gen- 
eric diagnosis and to redescribe abstinens from the cotype. 
Mayriella Forel 
Worker. Monomorphic, minute, thickset, with hard, 
sculptured integument. Head rather large, shaped much 
1 Forel, A. Rev. Suisse Zool. 10, 1902, pp. 452-454. 
2 Viehmeyer (Ent. Mitteil. 13, 1924, p. 26) has, indeed, described a 
Mayriella overbecki from Trial Bay, New South Wales, but I fail 
to detect anything in his account that does not apply to the typical 
M. .abstinens. 
3 Formicid£e of the Templeton Crocker Expedition, 1933. Proc. Cala. 
Acad. Sci. 21, 1934, p. 174-176, Fig. 1 and “Two New Genera of 
Myrmicine Ants from Papua and the Philippines,” Proc. New Eng- 
land Zool. Soc., 1935, pp. 1-9, Fig. 2. 
