Metapone emersoni Gregg

Alpert, G. D., 2007, A review of the ant genus Metapone Forel from Madagascar., Advances in ant systematics (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): Homage to E. O. Wilson - 50 years of contributions. (Memoirs of the American Entomological Institute 80), pp. 8-18 : 10

Metapone emersoni Gregg

Figures 5, 6, 11, 12, 17, 18

Gregg (1958) described this species and provided an illustration of the petiole and postpetiole in lateral view. Additional figures are provided here of the entire ant for comparison purposes. Gregg based his description on two workers found within a series of termites collected 12 miles from Perinet, Madagascar on June 28, 1935 by Harold Kirby. Kirby attached a locality code T- 4503, his record label T specifying a collection of termites. Many of Kirby's termite collections were later identified to species in a series of papers including Moszkowski's 1955 paper on Malagasy termites. T- 4503 however has never been listed as a locality code for Cryptotermes kirbyi, or any other termite, leaving in question the identification of the host termite for M. emersoni . One worker of M. emersoni has been collected subsequently from a more northern location, ( Toamasina, P. N. Mantadia , 18° 47' 30" S, 48° 25' 36" E, 895 m, rainforest, 25 Nov- 1 Dec 1998, coll. H. J. Ratsirarson, HJR 020 , CASENT 0003116 , CASC) .

A single queen assigned to M. emersoni was collected from the Andohahela Special Reserve (24° 46' 35"S, 45° 42' 19" E), in southern Madagascar (P. Rabeson, 4. II. 1993, MCZC). When M. emersoni is rediscovered and queens are collected in association with workers, then the status of this single queen can be confirmed .