Pheidole caffra Emery
Major - Minor - Type location South
Africa (Emery, 1895h: 33, major; Santschi, 1939b: 239, minor);
subspecies amoena (Pheidole caffra Em. v. amoena n. var., Forel, 1911d: 365, major) from Eritrea,
and montivaga (Pheidole caffra Em. v. montivaga n. var., Santschi, 1939b: 240, illustrated, all forms)
from Zimbabwe; all forms described (see Bolton, 1995) .
Emery's (1895h) description is at . Arnold (1920a: 478) gave a translation,
this is at Forel's (1911d) description of amoena
is at . Santschi's (1939b) description of montivaga
is at . Santschi (1939b) gave
an illustrated comparison of the type with montivaga and abyssinica,
this is at .
The last indicates that abyssinica is not a
subspecies of caffra.
It is quite clear from the original Emery
description that true caffra does not have strongly marked
sculpturation on the occiput and the frontal carinae reach the
posterior quarter of the head; the colour also is given as ferruginous
dull with the gaster piceous and shiny. It is my view that the common
fault of Forel in defining subspecies or varieties rather than species
led to confusion. Therefore, I have raised the quite distinctive Pheidole bayeri
Forel and with at least Pheidole senilifrons Wheeler to species (the latter with thysvillensis
as a probable junior synonym). The availability of cotype photographs of abyssinica
show that also to be a separate species Pheidole
abyssinica Forel
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