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Psyche 
[December 
Altenkirch (1962) and Maschwitz (1964) discovered a so-called 
sting sheath gland in several bee species. It consists of a palisade 
epithelium located in the sheath valves. In some ant species we 
found a distinct palisade epithelium in the sheath valves and/or 
single glandular cells with long individual ducts (Table 3 (B), Fig. 
16, 17). Janet ( 1 898) describes similar single gland cells, located near 
the sheath valves, in Myrmica rubra. 
Bordas’s glands, as they were described by Bordas (1895) in 
Terebrantia and reexamined by Rathmayer (1962) in several sphecid 
wasps, could not be identified in ants, although some of clusters of 
the single gland cells which send their ducts through the membrane 
of the sheath valves could be related to the Bordas’s glands. It is 
obvious to us that the glandular structures, associated with the sting 
apparatus of ants, need to be investigated in greater detail in future 
studies. 
In several ant species (Table 3 (C)) we found a highly developed 
palisade epithelium in the 7 th sternum (Fig. 8). It is especially 
conspicuous in several Leptogenys species and in the army ants 
Eciton and Neivamyrmex, but it is not strongly developed in 
Dorylus. In the dolichoderine species and in Aneuretus this epithe- 
lium seems to be closely associated with the sternal gland (Pavan’s 
gland). 
In the African weaver ant ( Oecophylla longinoda ) we discovered 
a sternal gland under the 7 th sternum, which is quite different from 
the glandular epithelium described above (Holldobler and Wilson 
1976, 1978). This structure consists of an array of single glandular 
cells that send short channels into cuticular cups on the outer 
surface of the sternite. In none of the other formicine species 
investigated, listed in table 1 b, did we find this type of sternal gland. 
But in Camponotus sericeus we detected different clusters of 
glandular cells in the last sternum. Each cell sends a long channel 
through the intersegmental membrane near the vagina into the 
ventral part of the “sting chamber”. We discovered similar paired 
glandular cell clusters in most myrmicine species we investigated. 
The gland is especially distinct in Novomessor and Veromessor, 
where the glandular cell channels penetrate the membrane near the 
vagina (Fig. 18). 
The function of the intersegmental glands: 
The functions of most of the glandular structures described in this 
paper are not yet known, but in a few species the function of the 
