120 
Psyche 
[September 
Myrmica schencki Emery 
Gosswald (1934/35, p. 125) has listed this ant as a 
mermithid host. Presumably the nematode larvae were 
parasitic in the ant larvae. 
Starcke, 1948: “Hairs. These are of three types. 1. 
Acrochaetae, straight or only slightly curved, pointed. 
Looked at through the immersion lens they appear to be 
armed with a number of very short and small thorns. 
Length 164-183 Micron, exceptionally up to 219 Micron. 
2. Microchaetae. Just the same, but shorter, 73-128 
Micron, occasionally even shorter still. 3. Oncochaetae 
(Wheeler; Aptochete Menozzi 1936), simple and flexible, 
not pointed but tipped with double hooks in the shape of an 
anchor. Length 164-201 Micron. With the living larva or 
the larva kept in formaline they are straight, but as most 
investigators keep their larvae in alcohol, in which the 
oncochaetae shrink and become flexuous, they have been 
pictured that way by most authors and so I did the same. 
Each segment bears a transversal row of Acrochaetae, 
numbering five on both sides of the thorax, and two or 
three less regular rows of Microchaetae. The ventral side 
of the abdominal segments does not wear hairs, except for 
the last segments and even there they are very rare. On 
the ventral side of the prothorax there is also this row of 
Acrochaetae and some less regularly placed Microchaetae, 
but they are shorter than anywhere else. The mesothoracal 
and metathoracal segments have only one irregular row of 
Microchaetae each on their ventral side. Dorsally and on 
the sides these segments possess from 6 to 10 Acrochaetae; 
the two or three irregular rows of Microchaetae are diffused 
ventrally into one transversal row of short hairs. The func- 
tion of these hairs on the ventral side of the thorax may be 
to form a kind of trophothylax or food-bag, preventing the 
pieces of insects laid down there by the workers from slip- 
ping off, so the larva can grasp them with her mandibles. 
On the ventral side the first 6 abdominal segments are 
completely bald. Dorsally the row of Acrochaetae is re- 
placed by a row of Oncochaetae, which reaches till halfway 
down the sides. Further down on the ventral half of the 
sides — but not on the ventral side itself — these On- 
