Odontomachus maxillaris

Smith, F., 1858, Catalogue of the hymenopterous insects in the collection of the British Museum. Part VI. Formicidae., London: British Museum : 77-78

4. Odontomachus maxillaris . Pl. V. figs. 12-14. B.M.

Female. Length 7 lines.-Pale reddish-brown, irregularly stained with darker shades on the thorax; the head very smooth and shining, the mandibles two-thirds of the length of the head, abruptly curved at their apex and armed with three teeth, the inner one shortest; the inner edge of the mandibles serrated; on each side of the face a deep smooth longitudinal excavation, commencing at the base of the mandibles and terminating opposite the anterior ocellus; the space between the excavations longitudinally striated, the striation terminating at the posterior ocelli, from which a deep channel runs upwards to the extremity of the vertex; the antennae as long as the head and thorax, slender and filiform. Thorax elongate-ovate; the pro- and metathorax transversely striated, the mesothorax longitudinally so; the coxae and base of the femora pale. The scale smooth and spined at the apex; the abdomen smooth and shining, with the base and the apical margins of the segments dark brown, the whole sprinkled with a few long pale hairs.

Worker. Length 7 lines.-In colour resembling the female; the head similarly sculptured; the prothorax forming a kind of neck, the meso- and metathorax elongate and straight, the sides being nearly parallel, the whole transversely striated; the legs paler than the thorax. The peduncle produced above into a sharp elongate spine, its base beneath also armed with a shorter spine; the abdomen as in the other sex.

Hab. Brazil (Ega and Villa Nova). (Coll. H. W. Bates.)

This species very closely resembles the 0. affinis of Guerin, but the abdomen is black in that species, and no mention is made of the spine beneath the peduncle of the abdomen; in Guerin's species the mandibles are feebly denticulate, in this they are strongly so.