Anoplolepis (Anoplolepis) tenella (Santschi)

Type locality Congo (Plagiolepis tenella, Santschi, 1911c: 363, worker, not illustrated) collected at Brazzaville, by Weiss, 1907, from the stomach of a pangolin; Wheeler, 1922a: 214, male & queen; in Anoplolepis, Emery, 1925b: 18); all forms described; in subgenus Anoplolepis (Bolton, 1995) .

Santschi's (1911c) description is on - . Santschi (1911g) reiterated the description, this is on - . Wheeler (1922a) noted the queen had been reported by Forel but was not described; the male Wheeler gave as TL ca 5 mm, the wings ca 6 mm, the head only half as wide as the alitrunk, wider than long, with small acutely 5-toothed mandibles; colour, sculpture and pilosity as with the worker, but the head is dark brown behind and the alitrunk shining, with thee obscure brownish longitudinal blotches on the mesonotum.

WORKER (Nigeria specimens) - TL 3.73 mm, HL 0.98, HW 0.90, SL 1.40, PW 0.65 (in my guide as Plagiolepis species T²)
Colour golden-yellow, gaster darker and shiny, head and alitrunk dull because of sculpturation of very fine reticulation. Erect hairs coarse, brown and abundant on head and gaster. Promesonotal and metanotal sutures marked, metathoracic spiracle raised, propodeum domed in profile.

In Nigeria collected by us from cocoa at Akure, Ondo State.

Found in pitfall traps, 47-82 individuals, in two cocoa plots at Nko'emvon, Cameroun, by Jackson (1984, identified by Bolton). The average of two individuals per trap suggests that they forage singly.

Also known from Zaïre, where specimens were found running on the ground in a native village (Wheeler, 1922).