Monomorium oscaris Forel

Type location Ethiopia (Forel, 1894b: 86, worker); junior synonyms despecta (Forel, 1910c: 252; Menozzi, 1931a: 154, worker; Forel, 1913b: 331, queen) from Eritrea, dispar (Emery, 1895h: 24, worker) from South Africa, kalahariense (Forel, 1910f: 18) from Botswana, prossae (Monomorium amblyops r prossae, Forel, 1916: 418; replacement name for bulawayense, Forel: 1914d: 247) from Zimbabwe and solleri from Senegal (Rhoptromyrmex solleri, at Bissao, by Soller, a female, in Forel, 1910e: 430, queen); worker & queen known (see Bolton, 1995) .

Forel's (1894b) description is at . Emery's (1895h) description of dispar is at . Forel's (1910c) description of despecta is at . Forel's (1910c) description of solleri is at . Forel's (1910f) description of kalhariense is at . Forel's (1914d) description of prossae (as M. amblyops r bulawayense) is at . Arnold (1916: 235) gave a translation of dispar, this is at . Arnold (1916: 235) gave a translation of kalahariense, this is at . Arnold (1916: 235) gave a translation of prossae, this is at and . Bolton's modern description (1987: 326, illustrated pedicel dorsal view) is at

Note monophasic allometry: Worker TL 1.6-3.8 mm, HL 0.46-0.94, HW 0.36-0.84, SL 0.34-0.54, PW 0.24-0.52 (Bolton, 1987).

The findings listed by Bolton give no indication of arboreal habits and many are from drier locations - Bolton commented that oscaris is a widely distributed and versatile species ranging over most of the Afrotropical region outside the rainforest zone or within that zone in cleared areas; i.e. it is essentially a savannah species.

Bolton described how he found it in termitaria and nesting in the earth, but once finding a nest in an old rotting cocoa pod still attached to the tree and some distance above the ground (Bolton, 1987). Elsewhere from Nigeria, Bolton (1987) listed a finding at Mokwa (C. Longhurst).

From Ghana, Bolton (1987) examined specimens from Legon (D. Leston; G. Benson); Navrongo (P.M. Room) and Dawhwenya (C.A. Collingwood). These are all savannah locations. Separately, in a record not mentioned by Bolton, 6 workers were collected by pkd from the canopy of Amelonado cocoa at CRIG by Bigger (1981a), at a guess these are variant given below.

This leads to the puzzle of specimens collected in Nigeria, at CRIN (B. Bolton), found nesting in an old cocoa pod and also on open ground. In the CRIN collection they were labelled Syllophopsis species 1. Before now (2002), I felt they were clear members of the fossulatum-group, being the former afrotropical Syllophopsis (Bolton, 1987) and only the larger size distinguishes them from the brief description given by Bolton.

Nigeria specimen (Syllophopsis species 1 in Taylor, 1980a: 45). WORKER. TL 2.74 mm, HL 0.78, HW 0.68, SL 0.50, PW 0.39; colour golden yellow. Sculpturation of very fine striations on the head; spiculation on lateral mesonotum and propodeum; fine transverse striations on dorsal and upper lateral propodeum. Erect hairs long and moderately abundant; pilosity short and sparse. In profile the propodeum has a flat dorsum rounded into a near vertical posterior face.

It seems either that one is dealing with a medium to large oscaris, or possibly, Monomorium epinotale, as described by Santschi (1923e), which has a matching propodeal profile, position of eyes at one-third point of head, anterior striation on head, etc.

Nigeria specimen (Syllophopsis species 2 in Taylor, 1980a: 45). TL 1.68, HL 0.47, HW 0.37, SL 0.31, PW 0.26; colour golden yellow. Sculpturation of fine reticulo-striation on the lateral mesonotum; very faint transverse striations on the dorsal propodeum and similar but longitudinal striations on the posterior of the lateral propodeum. Erect hairs sparse and fairly coarse.

I found it ground nesting and foraging at CRIN (specimen in my voucher collection either missed by Bolton or not identifiable from his lists of findings).