Xiphomyrmex occidentalis Santschi subspecies akengensis, Forel, 1887

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 : 194

Xiphomyrmex occidentalis Santschi subspecies akengensis , new subspecies

Worker. - Length 1.8 to 2 mm. Smaller than the typical form, which measures 3.5 mm., with the mandibles red, the tarsi, middle and hind coxae and tips of fore coxae brownish yellow, and the remainder of the legs and the antennae reddish brown. The seventh funicular joint is as long as broad; the eyes smaller and more flattened than in the type, scarcely more than one-sixth as long as the side of the head, with the anterior orbits somewhat narrowed and bluntly pointed. The postpetiole is twice as broad as long, its node somewhat transverse and compressed anteroposteriorly, the petiolar nods also somewhat broader and more squamiform than in the type. In other respects agreeing very closely with Santschi's figure and description.

Described from numerous specimens taken at Akenge (Lang and Chapin) from a single colony in "a dark brown paper nest." There is nothing to show that these specimens were not inhabiting the abandoned nest of some other ant. A single dealated female from Liberia in my collection belongs, in all probability, to this subspecies. It measures nearly 2.5 mm. and is very much like the worker. The larger eyes are not bluntly pointed in front, though rather flat. The thorax is small, with small mesonotum, bluntly pointed in front and not covering the pronotum, the epinotal spines are much stouter and further apart than in the worker, the petiolar node is broader, more squamiform and more transverse above, more sharply separated from the peduncle, and with its anterior surface decidedly concave. The color is the same as that of the worker, the body being brownish black with the appendages paler.