Anochetus horridus

Brown, WL Jr.,, 1978, Contributions toward a reclassification of the Formicidae. Part VI. Ponerinae, tribe Ponerini, subtribe Odontomachiti. Section B. Genus Anochetus and bibliography., Studia Entomologica 20, pp. 549-638 : 612

[38] A. horridus

is a distinctive, gracile, testaceous species with very long, slender, sparsely toothed mandibles. The type, an ergatoid queen, was collected by Karol Lenko during our joint 1962 trip in Brasilian Amazonia, but only one of the other samples taken by our group on that excursion was mentioned by Kempf in the original description. Additional samples are from Pará, near Belém: Pirelli Rubber Plantation, Iriboca (Brown). Reserva Guamá (P. Dias). Instituto Agronomico do Norte (F. G. Werner). Amazonas, N and E of Manaus: Manaus-Itacoatiara Highway (Ruta 1), km 49 (Brown). Reserva Ducke (Brown). All localities were in lowland rain forest.

Workers were found singly in leaf litter, in or under a small rotten log, and in a small nest or nest fragment in a rotten branch in the leaf litter, with larvae.

Despite intensive collecting of the same kind we practiced at Belém and Manaus, Lenko and I failed to collect A. horridus during 3 weeks in the Benjamin Constant area of western Amazonas, and the species has yet to be collected in the Guyanas.

A. inca , the largest of all known Anochetus species, remains represented in collections only by the type series, from the Marañon Valley in northern Peru. It seems possible that more isolated species may await discovery in other Andean valleys and foothills.