1979] 
Taylor — Ant Genus Aulacopone 
355 
“grade” standing parallel to Proceratium in ectatommine evolution, 
especially to those species then assigned to Sysphincta. 
Brown, however, related Aulacopone to Heteroponera, a genus 
which has its distribution somewhat more peripheral to the main 
northern continents than that of Gnamptogenvs, especially in the Old 
World. There are two faunistic elements : one in eastern and south¬ 
western mainland Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand; the other 
in South America, from Panama south to Uruguay and Chile (Kempf 
and Brown 1968). Heteroponera is unknown from the Palearctic, 
Oriental and Ethiopian regions, or from Melanesia. It has no known 
fossil record. Undescribed species known from Australia could at 
least treble its continental fauna of three species recognised by 
Brown, and the name H. imbellis (Emery), as applied by Brown, 
certainly refers to a partly intractable complex of several Australian 
species. New Zealand has a single known endemic species. Kempf 
(1972) listed 13 Neotropical species. 
The Aulacopone female (Figs. 1-4) is very like her counterparts in 
species of the Heteroponera imbellis complex, in size, general habi¬ 
tus, structure of the mesosoma, and colour. Aulacopone and Hete¬ 
roponera share several major features distinguishing them from 
Gnamptogenys, including the presence of a median longitudinal 
costa, distinct from other sculpture, on the head (terminating in front 
of the anterior ocellus in females), and the absence of a tooth or spine 
on the upper surface of each posterior coxa (a feature of almost all 
Gnamptogenys species, found nowhere else among the Ectatom- 
mini). Aulacopone also shares with Heteroponera those features 
distinguishing the latter from the neotropical genus Acanthoponera; 
these include the absence of long propodeal spines and a strong tooth 
or spine on the petiolar summit, and the lack of a prominent basal 
lobe accompanying a distinct submedian tooth on each tarsal claw. 
Basal lobes are characteristic of Acanthoponera. Submedian teeth 
are vestigially represented on the claws of some neotropical Hetero¬ 
ponera species, though they are lacking from all Australian species, 
and from Aulacopone. The lack of submedian teeth on the tarsal 
claws also distinguishes Aulacopone and Heteroponera from the 
prominent and diverse Australia-based genus Rhytidoponera, the 
species of which, in addition, almost all have a strong tooth-like 
process on each lateral pronotal margin. Such structures are lacking 
in other ectatommine genera, including Aulacopone, and all Hete- 
