Lepisiota guineensis (Mayr) - new status

Type location Ghana (Acantholepis capensis var guineensis, Mayr, 1902: 296, worker) collected at Accra, by Buchholz .

Mayr's (1902) description is at . Yellow-brown with well developed petiolar spines; raised here to status of a distinct species [I suspect the true colour is darker with only the appendages being yellow brown].

Lepisiota species undet. (1)

WORKER (Nigeria specimens) Size variable; TL 2.68-2.49 mm, HW 0.65, HW 0.59, SL 0.76, PW 0.42 (in my guides as Acantholepis capensis)
Colour black, extremities red-brown, especially the base of the antennal scape, shiny. No sculpturation other than marked long rugae on mesonotum. Erect, colourless hairs relatively abundant. Propodeal prominences blunt. Petiole with a pair of spines.

The specimens drawn and described represent the form most commonly seen in Nigeria at CRIN, where it was one of the most abundant of all ant species.

NOTE - from Wheeler (1922), it appears this might be one of the large number of subspecies and varieties listed under Lepisiota capensis (see above).

Nests are usually made in dead wood both on standing trees or on the ground. Forage widely across the ground and on almost any vegetation or trees.

Dominant on 9-10% of cocoa, and 53/76 farms (combined result with Lepisiota sp. T²) in Nigeria (Booker, 1968?, as Ac. capensis incisa; Taylor, 1977; Taylor & Adedoyin, 1978), where they are avid tenders of aphids and coccids, often building tents of soil material over these Homoptera; curiously these soil tents have not been found to be associated with black pod disease. Also found on coffee, kola, oil palm and plantains.

Found in Ghana cocoa, as Ac. capensis Mayr, but apparently not very common. Leston (1973) described it as a savannah ant which had penetrated only the more degraded areas of the forest zone, but on cocoa could have colonies extending at times over several dozen trees. Collected by Room (1971) on cocoa canopy and on open ground and herbs (at Mampong Cemetery Farm and in his canopy survey), and by Majer (1975, 1976b) at Kade, using pkd, apparently one worker only. Nineteen workers were collected on the ground from a block of mature Amelonado cocoa at CRIG by Bigger (1981a).

The photomontage is derived from images at www.discoverlife.org - originals by Gary Alpert, Harvard University; Ivory Coast specimens.