Plectroctena minor Emery

Type location Ivory Coast (Emery, 1892d: 556, illustrated, queen; Emery, 1902c: 32, worker; Wheeler, 1922: 88, male); junior synonyms insularis (Santschi, 1924a: 169, illustrated, worker) from Fernando Po I., liberiana (Santschi, 1924a: 169, illustrated, worker) from Liberia, and perusta (Santschi, 1924a: 168, illustrated, worker) from Cameroun; all forms described (see Bolton, 1995) .

Emery's (1892d) illustrated description of the queen is at Emery's (1902c) description of the worker is at Santschi's (1924a) description of the species s.s. is at and those of perusta, liberiana and insularis are at . Bolton's modern description (1974b: 324, mandible and petiole profile) is at .

Nigeria specimen (Taylor, 1976: 29). WORKER. TL 14.38 mm, HL 3.23, HW 3.17, SL 2.15, PW 1.90
Colour dark red-brown, shiny. All over sculpturation of scattered small hair-pits, very faint striations on the lateral alitrunk and petiole.
Collected from a rotten log by Bolton at the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria, Idi Ayunre. He noted that fragments of millipedes were among the detritus of an excavated nest. Others TL 15.2-17.6, and otherwise generally larger, and darker (Bolton, 1974b).

Original collection from Assinie, Ivory Coast, by Ch. Alluaud, vii-viii 1886. The collection of perusta was at Barumbistation, Cameroun, by Preuss.

Wheeler (1922) listed it also from Sierra Leone (no details), Ghana (Aburi, F. Silvestri), Cameroun (Victoria, F. Silvestri), plus Fernando Po and Zaïre.

Bolton (1974b) also found it in Ghana, at CRIG, and it was described as not uncommon in eastern Ghana (Belshaw & Bolton, 1994b), although not found by them.

After examining further material from - Ghana, at Tafo, Wiawso and Odomi River, by D. Leston; Togo, at Palimé, Klouto, by Vir; Cameroun, at Ottotomo, Ndupe and Nzi, by A. Dejean, and Nkoemvon, by D. Jackson; Gabon, La Fôret des Abeilles, by S. Lewis; and Zaïre, Kinzambi, by A. Dejean; Bolton & Brown (2002) concluded the variations previously used to separate minor and gabonensis were insufficiently consistent to justify the separation into two species. They placed gabonensis as a junior synonym of minor.

Working with colonies established from field populations in the Kala, Matomb (Pan Pan), Ndupé and Ottotomo forests of southern Cameroun, Suzzoni, Schatz & Dejean (2000) used a cafeteria method of investigating the preferred prey of this species and conclusively demonstrated the "essential" nature of millipedes, with other arthropods being ancillary. Without millipedes in the diet of larvae in large colonies of P. minor winged females were not produced and the production of workers was reduced. The absence of millipedes, however, did not appear to affect the production of males. Foundling queens, avoiding tackling large prey and the illustration (right) from their paper shows such a queen with a woodlouse. They described how normal foraging is under the bark and in the wood of the rotting logs, which also are used as the nest sites.

The photomonatge is of a specimen from Uganda, collector Awatif Omer, 2006. Other images can be seen in the folder at

The photomontage is collated from http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=casent0003067. The specimen is from Gabon, Woleu-Ntem; 31.3 km 108° ESE Minvoul; 02°04'48"N 012°24'24"E; 600m; B L Fisher, BLF1673; rotten log in rain forest; 10.ii.1998.