Cyphomyrmex major Forel, 1992

Snelling, R. R. & Longino, J. T., 1992, Revisionary notes on the fungus-growing ants of the genus Cyphomyrmex, rimosus-group (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Attini)., Insects of Panama and Mesoamerica: selected studies., Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 479-494 : 490

Cyphomyrmex major Forel new status (Figs. 30.5, 30.13)

Cyphomyrmex rimosus var. major Forel , 1901:125; [[worker]]

This form is based on worker specimens from an unknown locality in Guatemala. Specimens subsequently recorded by Forel (1912) under this name from the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, are probably not conspecific. The only specimens of C. major that we have seen are three cotypes from the Forel collection (MHNG). The three workers are mounted on a single card; the right-hand specimen is the best preserved of the three and is here designated as the Lecotype and has been appropriately marked and labelled.

Although similar to C. vorticis and C. salvini, C. major differs from both in the shape of the prolonged portion of the occipital corners. In C. vorticis and C. salvini the occipital corner is distinctly spine-like, especially in lateral view; in C. major the occipital corner projects upward as a broad lobe (Fig. 30.5). The body hairs are slender and not at all scale-like in C. vorticis ; in both C. major and C. salvini they are broadly scale-like C. major is further distinguished from C. salvini , by the broader, more obtuse mesosomal tubercles (Fig. 30.13), rather than acutely conical (see Kempf, 1966, Fig. 16).