THE AUSTRALIAN ANTS OF THE GENUS 
PRISTOMYRMEX , WITH A CASE OF APPARENT 
CHARACTER DISPLACEMENT 1 
By Robert W. Taylor 
Biological Laboratories, Harvard University 
Introduction 
The Old World myrmicine ant genus, Pristomyrmex Mayr 1866, 
contains about 40 named forms, mostly from rain forests of the 
Ethiopian, Oriental and Australian regions. The Australian mainland 
fauna is small compared to that of New Guinea; it includes four 
species, three of which are newly described here. There are two 
species-groups, those of P. foveolatus n. sp., and P. quadridentatus 
(Andre) 1905, each containing two species. 
The former group includes P. foveolatus and P. thoracicus n. sp., 
closely related species with strong foveolate-reticulate sculpturation, 
having clear affinities with components of the New Guinean fauna, 
and known only from rain forests in the Cairns district of North 
Queensland. Foveolatus seems to be restricted to the Atherton Table- 
land, at elevations greater than 1000 ft, while thoracicus is apparently 
more widespread, but is not known from the Tableland proper. 
The affinities of the quadridentatus group are less clear; its species 
occur further south, in extreme S.E. Queensland, and N.E. New 
South Wales, and they may be derived from a separate, older, Mela- 
nesian stock. The group includes P. quadridentatus and P. wheeleri 
n. sp. Quadridentatus was originally placed in a separate monotypic 
genus, Odontomyrmex Andre 1905, which was synonymized with 
Pristomyrmex by Emery ( 1922). The lack of foveolate sculpturation 
on the head and body, and the presence of pronotal spines were thought 
by Andre to taxonomically characterize Odontomyrmex . But these 
characters occur together or separately in many Pristomyrmex species, 
and cannot be used to logically define a separate taxon (Brown, 1953). 
Nonetheless the “Odontomyrmex” habitus seems to characterize a 
natural phyletic group within the Australian fauna, and quadriden - 
tatus and wheeleri are undoubtedly cognate, or at least closely related. 
The former species is typically self-colored golden-brown, but it has 
an apparently conspecific bicolored variant, quadridentatus variety 
Research supported by U.S. National Science Foundation Grant No. GB 
1634 (1963-1965). Australian field studies in 1962, reported here, were 
supported by the Committee on Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University. 
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