Hirtitermes brabazoni, Gathorne-Hardy, 2001

Gathorne-Hardy, F., 2001, A review of the South-East Asian Nasutitermitinae (Isoptera: Termidae), with descriptions of one new genus and a new species and including a key to the genera, Journal of Natural History 35 (10), pp. 1485-1506 : 1497-1503

Hirtitermes brabazoni new species

Etymology. This species is named after GeoVrey William Brabazon, who was killed on 23 November 1998.

Hol ot ype. One specimen soldier caste Coll. R. D. Buxton and N. M. Collins, 1985. Dumoga-Bone National Park, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Deposited in Bogor Zoological M useum, Bogor, Indonesia.

Par at ypes. Soldiers and workers. Coll. R. D. Buxton and N. M. Collins, 1985. Dumoga-Bone National Park, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Deposited in Bogor Zoological M useum, Bogor, Indonesia.

Par at ypes. Soldiers and workers. Coll. R. D. Buxton and N. M. Collins, 1985. Dumoga-Bone National Park , North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Deposited in British M useum ( N atural H istory), London, U K .

H abitat . Lowland rainforest. F eeds on wood. So far only found in type locality.

M easurements. See table 4.

Soldier. Head capsule reddish yellow, rostrum becomes progressively darker towards tip, where it is dark reddish brown. Antennae are reddish yellow and the legs are yellow. Head shape in plan view circular but wider at the back, with sides narrow towards the rostrum. There is generally no hair (sometimes one or two hairs are present) on the head and the head capsule is smooth and shiny. There are four large setae in a regular rim around the fontanelle. The nasus is broadly conical with more or less straight sides in plan view. The tip of the nasus is sharply tapered towards the small fontanelle. There are 14 antennal segments, though the third segment is sometimes incompletely or not at all divided. The pronotum in plan view has a front margin which is broadly lobed in the middle and entire. The outer corners are rounded and signi cantly extended. The anterior lobe is smaller than the posterior.

Worker. Dimorphic. Major worker with brown head capsule and pronotum, minor worker head capsule yellow, pronotum hyaline. Major worker antennae are yellow, minor worker has hyaline antennae. Legs of major worker are yellow while the legs of the minor worker are hyaline, as are the minor worker’s ambominal tergites. Major worker’s abdominal tergites are dark brown. Minor worker are less sclerotized and the head is paler than the major workers. H ead capsule is oval. Only one or two setae are present. There are no visible compound eyes or ocelli. F ifteen antennal articles. Left mandible apical tooth is roughly equal in prominence to the rst marginal. The second marginal tooth is absent, it is fully incorporated into the cutting edge between the rst and the third. The third marginal distinctly protrudes from the cutting edge of the rst plus second marginals, is separated from the molar prominence by a distict gap and the anterior edge is shorter than that of the rst marginal. The right mandible apical tooth is just shorter than that of the rst marginal. The rst marginal has a uniform leading edge, this and the posterior edge are longer than those of the second. The second marginal is fully developed and separate from the rst and the posterior margin is more or less strait. The notch (cockroach notch) at the proximal end of the molar plate is moderately developed. The molar plate ridges are prominent and number eight.

The worker gut structure is similar to other wood-feeding South-East Asian N asutitermitinae.

Comparisons. Hirtitermes can be distinguished from other genera by the shape of the soldier head capsule in side view (long nasus, pointing upwards, see gure 6 and key). U nlike the other two species of H irtitermes , H. brabazoni has no setae on the dorsal part of the body and only short setae on the sternites.