22 
Psyche 
[March 
saddleshaped; mesonotal tubercles pronounced and their 
spiracular openings conspicuous. Petiole more or less 
pedunculate anteriorly and posteriorly, and provided with 
a thick, vertical scale. Tarsi long; tibiae more or less 
inflated. 
Gaster with five visible segments; sting absent; pore of 
formic acid gland surrounded by a circlet of small hairs. 
Female : resembles the worker ; winged. 
Anterior wing with the radial cell about equal to the 
cubital cell; a small discoidal cell. 
Male: smaller than the female. 
Head large, rounded posteriorly, and without transverse 
cephalic groove and occiptal bulge. Mandibles very short 
and rudimentary ; without teeth. Antennae with 13 articles. 
Eyes, clypeus and antennal insertions as in the worker. 
Thorax, petiole, gaster and wings as in the female. Geni- 
talia almost the same as in Prenolepis. Proventriculus 
provided anteriorly with a concave calyx, of which the 
sepals are thick, heavily chitinized, and reflected outwardly. 
Genotype: Myrmoteras binghami Forel, 1893. Burma ( ^ ). 
Two new species were described and much additional 
information about these ants was provided by Creighton, 
when in 1930 he wrote at considerable length concerning 
the feeding relationships and other aspects of their be- 
havior. He gave attention to the possibility of the pheno- 
menon of retrosalience (backward leaping) occurring in 
Myrmoteras. Such behavior has been observed in Odon- 
toynachus, Anochetus among the ponerines, and in Strumi- 
genys among the myrmicines. These genera, and also cer- 
tain others in the tribe Dacetini, such as Acanthognathus, 
Orectognathus, Mici^odaceto7i and Epitritus, according to 
Creighton, may be described as “trapjawed”. That is to 
say, they have elongated, narrow mandibles, articulated 
near the center of the anterior border of the head, and 
armed with various types of dentition. The mandibles 
when widely opened (extending in a plane at right angles 
to the long axis of the head), are operated by long trigger 
hairs attached either on the labrum or basal borders of the 
mandibles. These hairs when stimulated by appropriate 
