1962] 
Brown — Epitritus 
79 
of the head, and the spatulate ones of the scapes and clypeus, as shown 
in the figures. Slender, erect spatulate-to-clavate hairs in rows of 4 
or 6 on gastric dorsum, totalling about 32. Ground pilosity reduced 
to minute stubby hairs, chiefly on promesonotum and nodes, and sparse, 
short reelinate hairs on gastric dorsum and legs. T. ibiae and tarsi with 
longer reelinate hairs, some of them spatulate. Gula with fine reelinate 
hairs. Color medium ferruginous; head feebly infuscated dorsally; 
appendages more yellowish. 
Holotype [British Museum (Natural History)] and six paratype 
workers [deposited with holotype and in Museum of Comparative 
Zoology at Harvard College] taken in northern Nigeria near Zungeru 
on the Kaduna Road, 19 December, 1956, from “base of dead tree’’ 
by W. A. Sands of the Termite Research Unit (Collection No. S 
780). The paratypes are quite similar to the holotype, and range from 
the same size down to the smallest specimen : TL 2.0, HL 0.46, HW 
0.55 (Cl 120), ML 0.22 (MI 48), WL 0.49 mm. Cephalic index 
range for the entire type series is 1 19-125. There is slight variation 
in the size and shape of the small teeth or denticles in the apical com- 
plex. Female and male unknown. 
E. laticeps can be separated from its two congeners by means of the 
following key : 
1. Tooth at apparent (dorsal) apex of mandible small, about equal 
to or slightly longer than the other largest teeth of the apical 
group; promesonotum without conspicuous hairs of any kind 
(Nigeria) laticeps Brown 
Tooth at apparent (dorsal) apex of mandible long, straight and 
spiniform, about 2 or 3 or more times as long as the largest of 
the other teeth in the apical group ; promesonotum with numer- 
ous large orbicular scale-like hairs like those of the dorsum of 
the head 2. 
2. Funiculus with 5 separate segments; mandible with two pre- 
apical teeth (Japan: Kyushu, Honshu) hexamerus Brown 
Funiculus with only 3 separate segments; mandible with 4 pre- 
apical teeth (Mediterranean lands n. to Hungary) 
argiol.us Emery 
The finding of a species of Epitritus south of the Sahara marks the 
genus as a zoogeographical curiosity of more than usual interest. Of 
the two previously known species, E. argiolus is widespread in southern 
Europe and North Africa, while E. hexamerus has been taken twice 
in Japan. Evidently, Epitritus is a relict-distributed group that was 
once more widely distributed in the tropical and warm temperate 
