Myrmecina gratiosa

Smith, F., 1858, Catalogue of the hymenopterous insects in the collection of the British Museum. Part VI. Formicidae., London: British Museum : 133-134

3. Myrmecina gratiosa . B.M.

Worker. Length 4 lines.-Head, thorax, legs, and nodes of the petiole, ferruginous; abdomen smooth, shining black. Head large, wider than the thorax or abdomen, longitudinally striated, the striae stronger and more deeply impressed on the anterior portion of the face; the mandibles triangular, striated, and armed with strong black teeth on their inner margin. Thorax: its margins raised, the lateral angles of the anterior margin produced and acute; the disk longitudinally striated, with a deep strangulation between the meso- and metathorax, the latter coarsely rugose, and having on each side a short blunt tooth; the sides of the mesothorax have also a sharp angle or tooth at their margins at the verge of the strangulation, before which the sides are rounded; the femora very much thickened in the middle and much attenuated at their base and apex, the tibiae slightly incrassate; the legs very smooth and shining with the tarsi deep ferruginous. Abdomen ovate, narrowed at the base, which is slightly rufous; the nodes of the petiole rugose, the first elongated, the second subglobose; the first node is produced in the middle above into a short acute spine, and it has also a spine at its base beneath.

Female. Length 6 1/4 lines.-Of the same colour as the worker: the head rather more elongate-quadrate; the thorax elongateovate, sculptured as in the worker; wings subhyaline, the nervures pale rufo-testaceous, the stigma fuscous; the femora swollen as in the worker; the basal node is raised in the middle to a sharp transversely rounded edge, not spined; beneath, at its base, is a flattened acute tooth: otherwise like the worker.

Hab. Australia (Adelaide).

This fine species is placed provisionally in the genus Myrmecina : a dissection of the parts of the mouth would determine that question; it is however closely allied to that genus, if not belonging to it; the neuration of the wings only diners in their anterior pair having the cubital vein and also the subdiscoidal vein continued to the apical margin of the wing.