Odontomachus assiniensis Emery

Wheeler, W. M., 1922, The ants collected by the American Museum Congo Expedition., Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 45, pp. 39-269 : 100-101

Odontomachus assiniensis Emery

Text Figure 21

Akenge, [[worker]]; Medje, [[worker]]; Ngayu, [[worker]]; Niangara, [[worker]]; Niapu, [[worker]]. Eightysix specimens, all taken from the stomachs of four species of toads (Bufo polycercus, superciliaris, funereus, and tuberosus) collected by Lang and Chapin.

Stitz has described an 0. intermedius which differs from the typical assiniensis only in having the striae on the pronotum of the worker more arcuately concentric and therefore more as in O. haematoda and not simply transverse. A study of the long series of specimens before me shows that there is great variation in the pronotal striation, many specimens agreeing with Stitz's description; others having the striae in an asymmetrical whorl like that exhibited by the ridges on the tips of the fingers, and in a considerable number the striae are simply transverse, as described by Emery for the typical assiniensis . I do not regard these differences as more than nest variations and have therefore relegated Stitz's intermedius, which Santschi is willing to regard as a subspecies of assiniensis , to the synonymy.

Fig 21. Odontomachus assiniensis Emery . Worker, a, hotly in profile; b, head from above.