Pheidole speculifera Emery

Soldier - Minor - Type location Eritrea (Emery, 1877b: 373, soldier & worker; Santschi, 1930d: 268, male; Bernard, 1952: 223, queen); subspecies ascara (Emery, 1901e: 62, soldier; Santschi, 1930d: 268, worker & male) from Ethiopia, bispecula from Zaïre (Santschi, 1930a: 58, worker), and cubangensis from Angola (Forel, 1901d: 306, soldier only; variety of speculifera, Forel, 1916: 413); all forms described (see Bolton, 1995) .

Emery's (1877b) description is at and . Emery's (1901e) description of ascara is at . Santschi's (1930d) description of the male and of ascara is at . Santschi's (1930a) description of bispecula is at . Forel's (1901d) description of cubangensis is at .

Nigeria specimens -
SOLDIER - TL 6.97 mm, HL 2.27, HW 2.33, SL 1.18, PW 1.00
dark orange-brown. Head rugose anteriorly and reticulopunctate on the dorsum. Mesonotum and propodeum spiculate. Erect hairs coarse and abundant. Head with short frontal carinae, the clypeus slightly emarginate and with a slight medial carina. Propodeal spines relatively stout, blunt and curved laterally. Petiole emarginate with paired obtuse teeth dorsolaterally. Postpetiole shorter and broader than that of minor.

MINOR - TL 3.42 mm, HL 0.86, HW 0.65, SL 1.17, PW 0.47
colour yellow-orange, shiny, with a transparent cuticle. Sculpturation only of spiculation on the propodeum, lateral mesonotum and the petiole. Petiole with a low node flattened dorsally in profile; postpetiole with a domed profile and ovoid in dorsal view.

Wheeler (1922) included it from Cameroun (Johann-Albrechtschöhe, Conradt), plus very wide sub-Saharan localities. He noted his specimens, four soldiers from Faradje, and five workers from Garamba (in the stomach of a frog) matched Emery's description of the types from Abyssinia, but the workers were darker; the soldier size was no more than 6 mm whereas cubangensis was described by Forel as being TL 7 mm, with whole head opaque; Wheeler's specimens had the smooth shining areas of the vertex shown in his illustrations (right).

Bernard (1952) noted it as inhabiting all of tropical Africa, but probably originating in montane areas, from where come the principal varieties. In Guinea it was very common around Mt. Nimba, with colonies on the crests at 1600 m. As was frequent with the systematics of Santschi, Bernard found workers and soldiers from one locality appearing to come from different races. Soldiers (4 from Nion) tended to have the rounded matt head typical of the variety bisperula (a mis-spelling of bispecula). Workers on the other hand appeared most like the variety ascarus from Eritrea, being blacker, shinier and with a more slender petiole. He also described the previously unknown queen.

The photomontage of a soldier is collated from http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=CASENT0003237
Collection Information - Specimen Code CASENT0003237; Locality Gabon: Woleu-Ntem: 31.3 km 108° ESE Minvoul; 02°04'48"N 012°24'24"E 600 m; Collection codes: BLF01684; Date: 11 Feb 1998; Collected by: B.L.Fisher; Method: EC19 sifted litter; Habitat: rainforest; Transect Type: MW 50 sample transect, 5m Transect Sample No.: 11

In Nigeria it nests in dead wood and soil in crevices on living trees. Rare but found foraging on the ground and tending aphids on cocoa, e.g. at Onipe 1/1.

In Ghana, specimens determined as this were found in dead wood on the ground under cocoa, and as Pheidole near speculifera foraging in cocoa leaf litter at the Mamfe-Mampong farm in Ghana by Room (1971); also on cocoa mistletoe (Room, 1975); and on cocoa at Kade by Majer (1975, 1976 b), using pkd, and finding two workers in a single sample. Two workers were found on the ground under Amelonado cocoa at CRIG (Bigger, 1981a).

Relatively abundant in shaded areas of one cocoa plot at Nko'emvon in Cameroun, where Jackson (1984) collected it in pitfall traps. Weakly negatively associated with Pheidole species 2 in the same plot.

The photomontage is of workers collected in Cameroun - south-western tropical coastal forest area between Edéa and Campo (McKey Wolbachia project) - Cameroon 71 from location BOU, 18 April 2001, nest in the ground. Other images can be seen in the folder at -

The photomontage is of a minor worker from Ghana, collector S Sky Stephens, 2006. Other images can be seen in the folder at -