Axinidris icipe, Snelling, 2007

Snelling, R. R., 2007, A review of the arboreal Afrotropical ant genus Axinidris., Advances in ant systematics (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): Homage to E. O. Wilson - 50 years of contributions. (Memoirs of the American Entomological Institute 80), pp. 551-579 : 561-562

Axinidris icipe , new species

Figures 4, 14, 24

Worker diagnosis. Antenna scape shaft, pronotal disc and all gastral terga without erect hairs; each frontal carina with a single erect hair and frons with none; medial carina subacute in profile; pronotal disc slightly shiny and distinctly coriarious.

Worker measurements (n = 10). HW 0.60 - 0.68; HL 0.73 - 0.77; SL 0.44 - 0.49; EL 0.14 - 0.17; OVD 0.32 - 0.33; PNW 0.37 - 0.42; PPW 0.26 - 0.28; WL 0.77 - 0.90. Indices. CI 84 - 90; CNI 60 - 80; OI 22 - 28; SI 67 - 76.

Worker description. Frons slightly shiny, weakly coriarious and densely micropunctate; gena similar but becoming smooth and shiny toward mandible; lower frontal area and clypeus dull and sharply sculptured. Frons and vertex without erect hairs; one erect hair on each frontal carina above level of antennal insertion; clypeus with one pair of long erect hairs; scape shaft without erect hairs.

Mesosomal dorsum (Fig. 14) without erect hairs. Pronotum slightly shiny and sharply coriarious. Mesonotum finely reticulopunctate; mesepisternum and side of propodeum similar but more sparsely punctate and interspaces shinier. Metanotal spiracles low and barely visible in profile.

Spiracular prominence of propodeum low and inconspicuous, spiracular opening directed distad; medial carina present on posterior half of dorsal face, continuing onto declivitous face, carina right-angular to obtuse in profile at summit; spines blunt in dorsal view, distance between their outer apices greater than width of propodeum at spiracles.

Gastral terga shiny between close fine piligerous punctures and without erect hairs.

Head and body dark blackish brown, lower half of clypeus, mandibles, most of scape yellowish red; meso- and metatarsi dirty whitish.

Queen and male unknown.

TYPE MATERIAL

Holotype worker and 20 worker paratypes, KENYA, Kakamega Dist., Isiukhu , Kakamega Forest (0.27 ° N 34.88 ° E), January 2003 (W. Freund and C. Schmidt), fogging Teclea nobilis. Holotype in LACM ; paratypes in AKRI, BMNH, LACM, MCZC, NMKC, and United States National Museum of Natural History ( USNM).

ETYMOLOGY

The name is derived from the anagram for the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, Nairobi; it here used as a noun in apposition.

DISCUSSION

This species may be confused with A. kakamegensis , a species still known only from the type specimen. It shares with that species the extreme reduction in erect pilosity; i. e., the lack of erect hairs on the antennal scapes, frons, mesosomal dorsum and gastral terga. It differs from A. kakamegensis in the narrow head (longer than broad), the lack of strigulate sculpturing on the frons and malar area, and the lack of erect hairs between the frontal lobes; the clypeus has only a single pair of erect hairs (several present in A. kakamegensis ). Axinidris icipe is also a notably smaller species in which the head width is less than 0.70 mm versus 0.97 mm in the type of A. kakamegensis .