CONTRIBUTIONS TO A RECLASSIFICATION OF THE 
FORMICIDAE. IV. TRIBE TYPHLOMYRMECINI 
(HYMENOPTERA) 
By William L. Brown, Jr. 
Department of Entomology, Cornell University 
The Typhlomyrmecini (spelling here emended) are a tribe of 
Ponerinae here considered to contain the single small genus Typhlo- 
myrmex. In this sense the tribe dates only from Brown, 1953. The 
name Typhlomyrmicini (sic) } however, goes back to Emery, 1 9 1 1 , 
who first proposed it as a subtribe of tribe Ectatommini to contain the 
three genera Prionopelta , Typhlomyrmex , and Rhopalopone. Brown 
(1950) showed that Prionopelta belongs to tribe Amblyoponini, while 
Rhopalopone is a synonym of Gnamptogenys in tribe Ectatommini 
(Brown, 1958). After these subtractions, the genus Typhlomyrmex 
could not be placed comfortably in any existing tribe, and its present 
taxonomic position is an expression of this fact. 
At first sight, Typhlomyrmex workers look like rather ordinary 
small cryptobiotic members of tribe Ponerini, although the frontal 
lobes are not as prominently developed as in Ponerini, and the petiole 
is never quite “right” in form. The males and larvae clearly conform 
to Emery’s “Section Proponerinae,” including Amblyoponini, Ecta- 
tommini, and Platythyreini in the modern sense; (the cerapachyines 
all probably belong here as well), so that the resemblance of the 
workers to those of certain Ponerini (in Emery’s “Section Eupone- 
rinae”) is either convergent or else marks a side lineage from near 
the base of the stock that led to the Ponerini. 
Among “proponerines”, Typhlo?nyrmex shows some similarities to 
Amblyoponini and to Ectatommini, but it can be distinguished from 
both by the wing venation of the sexes and the larval mandibles. The 
main similarity between Typhlomyrmecini and Amblyoponini, other 
than in “basic ponerine” traits, lies with the shape of the petiolar node 
of one Typhlomyrmex species, T. rogenhoferi. This node, because 
of its elongate form without a distinct posterior face, resembles that 
of an Amblyopone very closely in side view. In dorsal view, however, 
T. rogenhoferi proves to have a much thinner (bilaterally compressed) 
petiolar peduncle, and this makes it seem possible that its amblyoponine 
features could have been convergently acquired. Whether or not this 
is the correct interpretation, it is true that, aside from basic “pro- 
ponerine” characters, the Typhlomyrmex adult has little in common 
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