Dorylus (Typhlopone) fulvus (Westwood)

Type location North Africa (Typhlopone fulva, Westwood, 1839: 219, illustrated, worker); subspecies badius from Mozambique (Gerstacker, 1859: 261, worker) (with its synonym rhodesiae from Zimbabwe, Forel, 1913a: 111, worker), crosi from Algeria (Santschi, 1926e: 230, worker & male), dentifrons from Zaïre (Wasmann, 1904b: 673, worker) (with its synonym stramineus from Cameroun (Stitz, 1910: 128, workers), eurous from Ethiopia (Emery, 1915g: 5, illustrated, workers), glabratus from Gambia (Shuckard, 1840c: 317, male), juvenculus from Morocco (Shuckard, 1840c: 318, male; junior synonym oraniensis, Lucas, 1849: 302, illustrated, worker, synonymy by Emery, 1888b: 350), mordax (synonym replaced impressus) from Ivory Coast (Santschi, 1931d: 407), obscurior from Guinea (Wheeler, 1925b: 1; workers; but use of variety obscurior Santschi, 1914d: 333 - collected by F. Silvestri), punicus from Tunisia (Santschi, 1926e: 231, illustrated, worker & male; Santschi, 1931d: 401, illustrated, queen), ruficeps from Lebanon (Santschi, 1926e: 232, male) and saharensis from "Sahara" (Santschi, 1926e: 231, illustrated, male); junior synonyms clausii from North Africa (Joseph, 1882: 47, worker), dahlbomii (Westwood, 1840b: 88, illustrated, worker), kirbii (Shuckard, 1840b: 265, worker), spinolae (Shuckard, 1840c: 327, worker) and thwaitsii (Shuckard, 1840c: 326, worker)(location not known), shuckardi from Guinea (Westwood, 1840b: 88, illustrated, worker; Ritsema, 1874: 182, male, is a paper on New Guinea!); all forms known (see Bolton, 1995) .

Gerstaecker's (1859) description of badius is - "Dorylus badius, n.sp.; pedunculo abdominis quadrato, mandibulis elongatis, acutis, dilute rufo-brunneus, cano-tomentosus, abdomine sericeo-micante, segmento ultimo laevi, apice rufo-piloso; capite negro, vertice alto elevato, alarum venis nigro-fuscis. Long. lin. 14-15½. Mas."

Santschi (1928d) provided a fresh description of the type specimen, made by W.C. Crawley, of the Oxford (University) Museum; that together with Santschi's description of impressus is at . Shuckard's (1840c) description of glabratus is at . Shuckard's (1840c) description of juvenculus is at . Lucas's (1849) description of oraniensis is at . Wasmann's (1904b) description of dentifrons is at . Stitz's (1910) description of stramineus is at . Santschi's (1914b) description of badius is at . Santschi's (1914d) description of obscurior is at . Emery (1915g) described eurous and provided illustrated comparative notes - these are at . Wheeler (1922: 49) gave comparative notes on obscurior and provided illustrations - these are at . The images (above right) appear to suggest the West African/Congo Basin form, dentifrons, may be significantly different, with rhodesiae and badius being a smaller East African form.

With fresh material I have been able to link the following pages:
Dorylus fulvus badius - specimens from South Africa
Dorylus fulvus eurous - specimens from Sudan
Dorylus fulvus juvenculus - specimens from Israel
Dorylys fulvus oraniensis - specimens from Tunisia
Dorylus fulvus obscurior - specimens from Kenya
Dorylus fulvus punicus - drawings from Egypt

Santschi's (1931d) description of the queen, or gyne, male and workers of D. fulvus stirps juvenculus variety punicus is on .

Santschi's description of the male has TL ca 30 mm.

Armin Ionescu, of Tel Aviv University has kindly sent me photographs of a gyne from Israel, Kefar-Saba, 10.xi.1967, Z. Zuck-Rimon. From those I have compiled the photomontage.