Tetramorium quadridentatum Stitz

Type location Cameroun (Stitz 1910: 144, worker) collected at Mundame by L. Conradt; junior synonym commodum (Santschi, 1924b: 215, worker & queen) from Zaïre, Ituri, La Motot, Madyu, collected by L. Burgeon; worker and queen described (see Bolton, 1995) .

Stitz's (1910) description is at . Santschi's (1924b) description of commodum is at . Bolton's modern description (1980) is at .

WORKER (drawn specimen from Nigeria) - TL 4.42 mm, HL 1.01, HW 0.84, SL 0.75, PW 0.62 (TL in Bolton, 1980, 4.1-5.9 mm; in my guide as Tetramorium species K)
Colour pale yellow-brown, gaster darker. Sculpturation of faint rugoreticulum on the head, alitrunk and pedicel, rugae most pronounced on dorsal surface. Erect hairs yellow, moderately long and abundant. Propodeal spines short, acute and upturned; metapleural lobes similar in shape and only a little smaller. Petiole with a rounded anterodorsal face; the posterior face sloping inwards to the base; in dorsal view the node is ovoid with a narrow apex posteriorly. Postpetiole with a similar shape but shorter. There is a minute subpetiolar spine.

Reviewed by Bolton (1980, illustrated, alitrunk and pedicel) and described as widely distributed in West and Central Africa.

Probably arboreal, found occasionally on cocoa where it nests in debris filled crevices. My finding from Nigeria was in Bolton's (1980) list, together with his own collection at CRIN, and one from IITA (B.R. Critchley).

Bolton (1980) gave a considerable number of records from the Ghana cocoa zone - at Aburi and Koforidua (P. M. Room), Adeiso, Bunso, Enchi, Goaso, Kade, Maasi, Mt. Atewa (D. Leston); Oyoko and Mt. Atewa (C.A. Collingwood); CRIG (D. Louis); Mt. Atewa (B. Bolton). Collected in Ghana, once in his survey of insolated cocoa canopy by Room (1971). Also at Kade by Majer (1975, 1976b) using pkd knockdown, with 7-9 workers per sample. Single specimens were found in pkd samples from three of the plots surveyed by Bigger (1981a) in a single area of Amelonado cocoa at CRIG. Lastly, it was found in leaf litter in the semi-deciduous forest zone, one specimen only from Bunso cocoa (Belshaw & Bolton, 1994b).

Bolton (1980) also had a Cameroun finding, at Nko'emvon (D.A. Jackson) and commodum queen from Comba, Congo, by A. Weiss.

Tetramorium quadridentatum Stitz, colour variant

Not drawn as morphologically almost identical to the pale variant. Colour dark yellow-brown, with rugae more distinct, probably due to the darker colour.

In Nigeria, this was more common at CRIN than the light variant. It was also arboreal found on cocoa nesting in a dead pod as well as in crevices, and tending aphids. Bolton (1980) thought the colour variation was a consistent feature on a nest basis.