Pseudolasius weissi Santschi variety sordidus Santschi

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 : 218

Pseudolasius weissi Santschi variety sordidus Santschi

Text Figure 54

To this variety I refer a major and six minor workers and two partly dealated females taken from the stomachs of toads captured by Lang and Chapin at Akenge. Owing to the fact that both females were taken from a Bufo polycercus, while the workers were taken from a B.funereus, I cannot be certain that the specimens belong to the same species. The females are of the same size as those of the typical weissi (6.5 mm., the fore wings nearly 7.5 mm.). The eyes are elliptical and obliquely placed, but distinctly smaller than indicated in Santschi's description; the wings are paler, being rather uniformly brown, with dark brown veins and pterostigma.

I have figured the head of the worker major and minor. The eyes, as Santschi says, are present only in the former and are very small and slightly elongate. In one of the mediae I find them reduced to a single ommatidium. The apical border of the petiole is slightly concave in larger, entire in smaller workers. The color seems to be somewhat darker than described by Santschi for his variety sordidus , but this may be due to the action of the gastric juices of the toads.