Pheidole albipes ^HNS new species

Types Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard.

Etymology L albipes ^HNS, white-footed.

diagnosis A small, strikingly colored species of the flavens ^HNS group, similar in various traits to alticola ^HNS, chalca ^HNS, ebenina ^HNS, euryscopa ^HNS, hedlundorum ^HNS, lustrata ^HNS, monteverdensis ^HNS, palenquensis ^HNS, and servilia ^HNS, differing as follows.

Major: reddish brown with strongly contrasting pale yellow tibiae and tarsi, and head bicolorous; region between eye and occipital border irregularly rugoreticulate, occipital margins and center of clypeus smooth and shiny, and rest of dorsal surface of head carinulate; almost all of mesosoma smooth and shiny; humerus subangulate in dorsal-oblique view; postpetiole diamond-shaped from above.

Minor: almost all of head and body smooth and shiny; occiput broad and strongly concave; humerus subdenticulate in dorsal-oblique view.

Measurements (mm) Holotype major: HW 0.60, HL 0.64, SL 0.38, EL 0.10, PW 0.34. Paratype minor: HW 0.38, HL 0.40, SL 0.36, EL 0.06, PW 0.24.

Color Major: body, coxae, and femora medium reddish brown; head anterior to eyes yellow; antennae, tibiae, and tarsi pale yellow. Minor: head and body medium brown; coxae and femora light brown; antennae, tibiae, and tarsi very pale yellow, almost white.

Range Southern Mexico: known from several lowland forested localities in Veracruz, and from forest 7 km south of Valle Nacional, Oaxaca, at 450 m.

biology At the type locality, in degraded lowland forest, I found two colonies nesting in small rotting tree branches in the ground leaf litter, and another colony under the bark of a large rotten log.

Figure Upper: holotype, major. Lower: paratype, minor. MEXICO: Pueblo Nuevo, near Tetzonapa, Veracruz (E. O. Wilson). Scale bars = 1 mm.