The Ants of Africa
Genus Dorylus - Subgenus Rhogmus
Dorylus (Rhogmus) fimbriatus (Shuckard)
{Dorylus (Rhogmus) fimbriatus}

Dorylus (Rhogmus) fimbriatus (Shuckard)

return to key {link to the Hymenoptera Name Server} Type location Gambia (Rhogmus fimbriatus, Shuck., Shuckard, 1840c: 325, male, no locality given; Emery, 1895j, 736, worker; Brauns, 1903: 294, queen); subspecies crampeli (Santschi, 1919b: 232, male) from Congo, laevipodex (Santschi, 1919b: 232, male) from Kenya, and poweri (Forel, 1914d: 217, worker) from South Africa; all forms known (see Bolton, 1995) .

Shuckard's (1840c) description is at {original description}. F Smith (1859b: 4) gave - {original description}. Emery's (1895j) translation into German of Shuckard's (1840c) description, with illustrations of the male, is at {original description}. Emery (1901c: 187) had an illustrated description of the worker morphs - {original description}. Forel's (1914d) description of poweri is at {original description}. Arnold (1915) gave full descriptions of all the life stages, with an illustration of the queen, these are at {original description}, {original description} and {original description}. The male description is a transcription of Shuckard's original description.


{Dorylus (Rhogmus) fimbriatus} Nigeria specimens (Taylor, 1978b: 19). WORKER. TL 7.16-2.12 mm . Five morphs; largest HL 1.56, HW 1.40, SL 0.56, PW 0.87
Colour dark orange-brown. Head, alitrunk and petiole finely reticulostriate, striations more marked dorsally. Scattered hair-pits on all dorsal surfaces, coarser on head. Erect hairs sparse but two pairs on propodeum, a few on both surfaces of the petiole and gaster, very long on first sternite. Relatively abundant pilosity on the dorsal alitrunk, petiole and all over gaster. Mandibles with a moderate apical tooth, the subapical tooth bluntly bifurcate and basal tooth reduced. Anterior clypeal margin straight but projecting forward slightly. Alitrunk dorsum flat. Subpetiolar process a small rear-curved triangle.
I collected it at the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria, Idi Ayunre. from a tree stump and outside a ground nest, perhaps migrating.

Wheeler (1922) listed findings from Guinea at Conakry and Mamou (F. Silvestri), Ghana, Cameroun and many other tropical African countries.

Schneirla (1971) noted it as inhabiting the "deep subterranean zone".


{Dorylus (Rhogmus) fimbriatus}Santschi's (1919b) brief description of crampeli notes only that the male was somewhat smaller than the type, e.g. HW 4.4, and the pygidium with paler pubescence. He separated laevipodex as slightly more robust; the gaster up to 7.3 mm long, the anterior wing 23 mm; the outer third of the mandible is not concave; the pygidium without pubescence and the hairs are long, fine and clear, so that the segment seems entirely smooth and shiny.


{Dorylus (Rhogmus) fimbriatus}The photomontage of the laevipodex male is compiled from http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=casent0172638&project= where it is denoted as a separate species, determined by W H Gotwald (unpublished).

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© 2007, 2008 - Brian Taylor CBiol FIBiol FRES
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