220 
Psyche 
[June 
Queen and male unknown. 
Holotype and paratypes from La Selva Field Station (Heredia 
Province) Sarapiqui District, Costa Rica, 10° 26' N - 83° 59' W, on 
the Rio Puerto Viejo. Collected by J. Wagner and J. Kethley. 
Field Museum collection #73-292, taken from 100 cc of berlesate 
of light brown duff from root mat around grass-like plant (8 work- 
ers); #73-299, from 100 cc of berlesate of root duff from epiphytic 
garden (2 workers); #73-295, from berlesate of buttress duff with 
soil, El Sura trail (1 worker). Holotype and 4 paratypes in the 
Field Museum, Chicago; remaining paratypes in Museum of Com- 
parative Zoology, Cambridge, Massachusetts; British Museum 
(Natural History), London; and W. W. Kempf collection, Brasilia. 
In comparison with other neotropical species, P. prizo is more 
slender, especially in its appendages (pronotal W/hind femur L of 
smallest worker 0.60, or largest worker 0.59), and it is the only 
known New World species with toothed mandibles. It bears some 
affinity to P. zodion in shape of the petiolar node and trunk, but 
differs in much larger body size and in conformation of the head 
(Brown 1975, figs. 34-36). 
P. prizo appears to belong to the clypeata group (see Brown, 
1975:50-52; Forel, 1911:378-379; and Wheeler, 1922:59-60), which 
until now included only Old World species. It has a similar frontal 
lobe structure, mandible shape, dentition, trunk shape, and the 
same palpal formula as this group. The petiolar node is most similar 
to that of P. clypeata (see Brown, figs. 23 and 24), but the posterior 
face in P. prizo is not so strongly concave, nor is the posterodorsal 
edge emarginate; the subpetiolar process is more like that of P. 
gracillima (see Brown, fig. 29). P. clypeata is also smaller (WL 
2.30 mm), with an unarmed propodeum. P. prizo differs even 
more from P. gracillima and P. bident at a. 
Prizo is a form of the Greek verb meaning “to saw”. It is used 
here arbitrarily as a noun in apposition, in reference to the serrate 
mandibles that clearly separate this species from other New World 
Platythyrea. 
Note on Platythyrea strenua: This species was described by 
Wheeler and Mann (1914, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. 33: 6-7, fig. 1 ) 
from material taken in a rotten log at Diquini, Haiti. No further 
records are known until two collections were made on the Sierra 
de Baoruco, Prov. Pedernales, Republica Dominicana during 
