Tetraponera latifrons (Emery)

Type location Gabon (Sima (Pachysima) latifrons, Emery, 1912b: 98, illustrated, queen; Santschi, 1914c: 288, worker & male); all forms described (see Bolton, 1995) .

Emery's (1912b) description of the queen is at . Santschi's (1914c) description of the worker and male is at .

The photomontage is of a specimen from the Central African Republic, Dzanga-Sangha NP; 26.01.2005; Camp1; 02°48’20.5" N 16°06’14.0" E 350m; 8h30, larves nymphes et fourmis dans tige de N’Goma N’Goma (Barteria sp., Flacourtiacées); collector Philippe Annoyer. This clearly has the head shape and pedicel dorsal shape of the Emery picture. It also has the weaker processes on the underside of the petiole and postpetiole.

Other images can be seen in the folder at -

Wheeler (1922: 308) gave an illustration and notes of what he identified as latifrons from Zaïre. He listed it from Cameroun (from Tiko, near Victoria, F. Silvestri), together with Congo and Zaïre. He gave a few details, mainly of the larvae; and reported it as found in and on a Barteria. On the worker ge gave - TL 7-8.5 mm; head more typical of genus than aethiops; clypeus with a conspicuous fringe of yellow ciliary bristles; petiole and postpetiole with rearward hooked processes, quite pronounced on petiole; black and shining. The drawing, however, is somewhat different from the Emery queen and the workers I show above. My suspicion is that what Wheeler illustrated was T. aethiops matching the André (1892a) description of "Sima spininoda" - with, for instance, very rounded posterior corners to the worker head and that is slightly longer than wide; whereas, T. latifrons has more angular posterior corners of the head and that is about 25% longer than wide.

In the report of the Lang-Chapin expedition there also is much information on the relation between the ant and the plant (Bequaert, 1922) and on the woody structure of the plant (by Professor Bailey) (see Ant Plants).