104 
Psyche 
[June 
Sierra de Cordoba. C. punctualatus is a highly variable 
species of which some 16 subspecies and varieties have been 
described, ranging over Argentina, Patagonia, Bolivia, Peru 
and Southern Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul and Sao Paulo). 
One variety, pergandei Emery, is recorded from Mexico. 1 
The normal worker major of C. punctulatus minutior 
(Fig. 1, c and d) measures 6-7.5 mm., the worker minor (Fig. 
1 e and /) 3.5-5 mm., the fertile female, or queen 11 mm. 
(according to Mayr.). I have not seen specimens of the 
queen minutior , but there are in my collection specimens of 
this caste belonging to the typical punculatus and its subsp. 
andigena Emery from Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. Both 
of these differ from the subsp. minutior only in size, sculp- 
ture and pilosity and in having the head, thorax and petiole 
black instead of red or reddish brown. 
The mermithergate (Fig. la) measures 7.3 mm. Its head 
(b) is much smaller than that of the worker major (d) and 
shaped more like that of the queen than the worker minor 
(f). This is especially true of its occipital region. There are 
no ocelli on the vertex, but these are small and widely se- 
parated in the queen. The mandibles are more convex than 
in the worker minor and therefore more like those of the 
major and queen. The clypeus, too, in possessing a more 
pronounced subrectangular anterior lobe is of the queen and 
worker major type. On the other hand, the antennal scapes 
of the mermithergate are long and slender and extend well 
beyond the posterior corners of the head as in the worker 
minor, whereas the scapes of the major and queen are much 
shorter in proportion to the dimension of the head. The tho- 
1 As Santschi has shown (Ann. Soc. Ent. France 88, 1919 p. 386), 
Mayr’s original description of C. punctulatus (Annuar. Soc. Nat. Modena 
3, 1868 p. 161) was drawn from at least three different forms of the 
species, namely, the subsp. minutior (Forel 1886), with red head and 
thorax, the subsp. i mberbis Emery var. cruenta Emery (1905), with black 
head and red thorax, and the form with black head and thorax, which 
Emery (1887) regarded as the type. Since Mayr mentions the form 
with minutior coloration first in his description of the worker and since 
the only female he describes belongs to this same form, the black form 
should have been given a new name and Forel’s minutior regarded as a 
synonym of Mayr’s punctulatus. It may be best, however, to leave this 
nomenclatorial adjustment to some future monographer of the species 
and its numerous subspecies and varieties. 
