Simopone conciliatrix Brown
Type location Ghana (Brown, 1975: 79, illustrated, adapted
right, worker & queen); known from workers and wingless
queens; with 12-segmented antennae
 .
Brown's description (1975) was -
WORKER - TL 2.4-3.4 mm, HW 0.53-0.68, HW 0.33-0.42, SL 0.18-0.29
(Ghana specimens)
Head in full face view strongly elongate, with parallel but
distinctly convex sides, subrectangular posterior angles and a
finely marginate feebly concave posterior border. Eyes large broad
elliptical and weakly convex, situated anteriorly. Antennae
12-segmented; funiculus apically incrassate; funiculus segments
2-9 longer than broad, apical segment more than twice as long as
subapical, last four segments forming a faint club. No ocelli.
Alitrunk almost three times as long as broad; only feebly
constricted in the middle; declivity of propodeum with a distinct
raised semicircular margin. Petiole barrel-shaped, convex
laterally and vertically, with a fine dorsolateral margin;
subpetiolar process low with a pointed anterior convexity and a
tapered posterior part. Pygidium with an impressed, nearly flat
disc, bordered laterally with a continuous U-shaped margin with
20+ minute denticles and a stout sting from the true apex.
Body slender, more or less cylindrical, including appendages;
colour yellow, smooth and shining with scattered piligerous
punctures, except for limited faintly longitudinal
striolate-puncturation on centre and sides of head, along lower
sides of alitrunk and lower sides of petiole; space between
frontal carinae finely roughened. Pilosity sparse, short, fine and
decumbent to suberect, except for an erect hair on each humerus;
longer such hairs on the petiole, postpetiole and gaster. Scapes
and legs with fine pilosity, funiculi with many short hairs,
except apical segment which has dense fine micropubescence.
Collected by B Bolton, holotype plus 120 other workers and two
dealate queens and larvae, from a nest about 2 meters above ground
in a hollow twig on a cocoa tree, in moderate shade, at Tafo
(CRIG) in Ghana, 27 November 1970. Brown also saw two workers from
the Yangambi Reserve, nesting in hollow twigs, Yangambi, Zaïre
(A Raignier & J van Boven, 6 October 1949). Named conciliatrix
as it conciliated a mixture of characters of Lioponera (=Phyracaces),
Simopone and Cerapachys |
The photomontage is collated from