Tapinoma melanocephalum (Fabricius)

Type location French Guyana (Formica melanocephala, Fabricius, 1793: 353, worker; Emery, 1887a: 249, male; Forel, 1891b: 102, queen), senior synonym of australis (Santschi, 1928a: 53, worker) from Samoa, australe (Santschi, 1928e: 475, worker) from Vanuatu, familiaris (F Smith, 1860b: 96, worker) from Indonesia, nana (Jerdon, 1851: 125, worker) from India and pellucida (F Smith, 1857a: 71, worker) from Singapore, plus subspecies coronatum (Forel, 1908b: 62, worker) from Costa Rica and malesianum (Forel, 1913k: 93, worker & queen) from Sumatra (see Bolton, 1995) .

Fabricius's (1793) description is at Emery's (1887a) description of the male is at .

WORKER (Nigeria specimens) - TL 1.49-1.71 mm, HL 0.45, HW 0.37, SL 0.42, PW 0.23
Colour of head and alitrunk dark yellow-brown, gaster yellow, extremities pale yellow. Dense fine pubescence all over, erect setae on clypeus and gastral apex only. Alitrunk in profile near smoothly convex, with slight metanotal depression in the convexity and the propodeal declivity straight.

Other examples can be seen on the Japanese Ant Color Image Database (edited left).

A domestic species which is common in houses in Nigeria.

Found in Ghana at the Mampong Cemetery Farm on cocoa mistletoe by Room (1971, 1975) and on cocoa at Kade by Majer (1975, 1976b), using pkd, with 20-27 workers per sample.

Also from Conakry, Guinea (by Silvestri, in Wheeler, 1922).

Hölldobler & Wilson (1990, page 213-5) describe it as an 'opportunistic nester', utilising almost any crack or crevice.

The photographed specimens were collected in Cameroun - south-western tropical coastal forest area between Edéa and Campo (McKey Wolbachia project) - Cameroon 2 from Ebodjé, on sandy soil and surface near the beach. Other images can be seen in the folder at - . Further images of specimens from Gabon, collected by Yves Braet, can be seen in the folder at - . and from Kenya, collected by David King, at .