A NEW LEPTOTHORAX COMMONLY INHABITING 
THE CANYON LIVE OAK OF CALIFORNIA 
(HYMENOPTERA: FORMICICLE) 
By Marion R. Smith 
Agricultural Research Administration, Bureau of 
Entomology and Plant Quarantine, U. S. 
Department of Agriculture 
In the late nineteen thirties Arnold Mallis of the Uni- 
versity of California sent me, for determination, a new 
species of Leptothorax which he and Jack Schwartz had 
collected at DeviPs Gate Dam, Pasadena, California. 
Later the same ant was received for determination from 
Mrs. Wilda S. Ross of Santa Barbara, California, who 
had been given specimens of it by C. H. Muller. Dr. 
Muller’s specimens were found nesting in an oak gall 
in the Figueroa Mountains of Santa Barbara County, 
California. Although recorded from a small number of 
California localities only, it is probable that the new ant 
has a much wider distribution, occurring wherever the 
canyon live oak is found or perhaps even beyond. Be- 
cause of the commonness of this new species on canyon 
live oaks and its association with galls on these trees from 
near San Francisco to Los Angeles County, it seems de- 
sirable to describe the form. 
Leptothorax (Leptothorax) gallae, new species 
Worker . — Length 3 mm. 
Head measured through its greatest breadth and 
length, one and one-seventh times as long as broad, with 
approximately straight posterior border, rounded pos- 
terior corners and weakly convex, somewhat subparallel 
sides. Eye rather large, located at approximately the 
middle of the side of the head. Antenna 12-segmented; 
apex of scape failing by more than its greatest diameter 
to attain the posterior border of the head ; funiculus with 
a 3-segmented club, which is scarcely longer than the re- 
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