Aeromyrma, Forel, 1891

Wheeler, W. M., 1922, The ants collected by the American Museum Congo Expedition., Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 45, pp. 39-269 : 165-166

Aeromyrma Forel

In this genus the worker phase is strongly dimorphic, being represented by a minute worker proper and a much larger soldier, both with 10-jointed antennae and distinctly 2-jointed antennal club. The head of the soldier is large, suboblong and, in some species, furnished with a ridge with a slight tooth-like projection on each side near the occipital border. Maxillary and labial palpi 2-jointed. Mandibles 5- or 6- toothed. Clypeus without teeth and usually without carinae. Eyes reduced to a few facets, the anterior ocellus well developed, the lateral ocelli absent. Pro- and mesonotum high and convex; epinotum short, unarmed or with small teeth. Promeso- and mesoepinotal sutures distinct. Petiole with a short peduncle, its node rather low and transverse; postpetiole also transverse, somewhat broader than the petiole. Gaster large, elongate, as long as the remainder of the body. Legs short. In the worker the head is small, scarcely longer than broad, without ocelli and with the eyes even more reduced than in the soldier, the gaster smaller, not elongate.

Female larger than the soldier, but with shorter head. Antennae 11-jointed, but also with a 2-jointed club. Thorax elongate elliptical, mesonotum seen from above covering the pronotum. Wings long, with a closed radial cell, a discoidal and one cubital cell.

Male smaller than the female, not larger than the soldier, with long, filiform, 13-jointed antennae, the scape very short, the first funicular joint not swollen, not broader than the succeeding joints. Outer genital valve long, narrow, acuminately rounded at the tip; middle valve with a short, hollow, subtriangular, external ramus, and an extremely narrow, rather long internal ramus terminating in a hook; inner valve with three ridges, the mesial of which is strongly dentate and with its point directed obliquely to the base of the valve.

The genotype, A. nossindambo Forel, was described from males and females taken in Madagascar many years ago. Sikora later found the soldiers and workers in a termitarium at Amparafaravantsiv in the same island. Forel therefore expressed the opinion that the species of Aeromyrma must be cleptobiotic. The fact that Emery found a worker attached to the tarsus of a female is suggestive in connection with conditions in Carebara (vide infra, p. 171).

For many years the genus was supposed to be monotypic and peculiar to Madagascar, but within recent years eight species and a variety have been described from the Ethiopian Region; Forel has also described a species from Sumatra (Map 23). A single soldier in the collection made by Lang and Chapin is certainly different from any of the species known in that phase. I describe it as new, although it may prove to be the soldier of one of the species based on workers.