Strumigenys petiolata Bernard (revived by Bolton, previously Strumigenys rufobrunea)

Type location Guinea (Bernard, 1952: 254, illustrated, worker), from Mt. Nimba, at 700 m, 4 workers in a termitary in the forest (collector Villiers) .

Bernard's description (1952) is at . Bolton's modern description (1983) is at .

Nigeria specimen (as S. rufobrunea, Taylor, 1979: 51). WORKER. TL 2.26 mm, HL 0.62, HW 0.50, SL 0.31, PW 0.30
Others TL 2.0-2.5 mm (Bolton, 1983: 384, illustrated, full face and lateral head).
Moderately excised preocular notch, ventral only. Mandibles with first preapical tooth moderately long, second tooth well developed. Apical pair of teeth with ventral shorter than dorsal. Head reticulopunctate; alitrunk and pedicel opaque, dull and unsculptured except for a fine mid-dorsal carina on the pronotum; lateral areas of mesonotum and propodeum shiny. Dorsum of head with scattered, short, adpressed spatulate hairs and a lateral fringe of 6/7 curved, broad spatulate hairs. Erect hairs narrow and clavate on the alitrunk (one pair), pedicel and gaster. Spongiform appendages of pedicel poorly developed on the petiole, short narrow subpetiolar strip and moderate on the postpetiole. Mesonotum on a distinctly lower level than the pronotum. Colour variable from yellow to dark brown or even darker, gaster often darker than head and alitrunk.
Found by my team in a debris tent on cocoa at Apoje, near Ijebu-Igbo.

Brown (1954) simply noted it, as S. rufobrunea, as being from West Africa.

In Nigeria Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria, Idi Ayunre, (B. Bolton) from soil and from a dead log. Also from IITA (A. Russell-Smith).

From Ghana, Bolton (1983) listed Enchi, Legon and CRIG (D. Leston), CRIG (B. Bolton; C.A. Collingwood), Mt. Atewa (B. Bolton), and Mampong (P.M. Room). Listed by Room (1971), as Strumigenys species 1, from open ground and leaf litter at the Mampong Cemetery farm. Described as widespread, from their leaf litter samples (1439 workers plus 31 from soil samples at 20 sites) in the semi-deciduous forest zone by Belshaw & Bolton (1994b). A single worker referred to as Strumigenys species F 584 was collected by Bigger (1981a) by pkd from Amelonado cocoa canopy at CRIG. Not such specimen was seen by Bolton (1983) but the code number suggests it is one of the species recorded as collected by D. Leston, the only one without a well-known name being petiolata.

Ivory Coast records included Issoneu, Man and Tai Forest (V. Mahnert & J.-L. Perret); Banco Forest and Sassandra (I. Löbl), Divo and Gagnoa (L. Brader) (Bolton, 1983).

From Cameroun at Nko'emvon (D.A. Jackson), near Yaoundé (G. Terron), and Batanga (G. Schwab) (Bolton, 1983).

Others Gabon (Makokou, I. Lieberburg, and W. Gotwald), Central African Republic (Haut Mbomu. N.A. Weber), Angola and Sudan.

The photomontage is of a specimen from Congo, Brazzaville, trap t 1.17; 19.viii.2007; collected by pitfall trapping, by Yves Braet & Eric Nzassi. Other images can be seen in the folder at -

The photomontage is of a specimen from Ghana, collected by S Sky Stephens, 2006. Other images can be seen in the folder at -

The photomontage of a specimen from the Ivory Coast is collated from http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=casent0102584. Collection Information: Specimen Code CASENT0102584; Locality Ivory Coast: [Issoneu]; Collection codes: ANTC4792; Date: 12 Oct 1980; Collected by: V.Mahnert J-L. Perret