Dorylus labiatus

These are highly subterranean ants that are rarely seen above ground. They are most commonly seen foraging on the surface only after heavy rains.

Identification
HW 1.13-2.30 mm. A large, polymorphic species. Antenna always 11-segmented. Concolorous brownish yellow. Very similar to Dorylus fulvus. (Wilson 1964)

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists
Oriental Region: Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. Palaearctic Region: China.

Nomenclature

 * . Dorylus labiatus Shuckard, 1840c: 319 (m.) INDIA (Maharashtra, Assam).
 * Type-material: syntype males (number not stated).
 * Type-localities: India: Poonah, Bombay Presidency (Sykes), and India: Assam (Cantor).
 * Type-depositories: BMNH, OXUM.
 * Forel, 1901a: 464 (w.).
 * Combination in D. (Typhlopone): Emery, 1895j: 724.
 * Junior synonym of juvenculus: Emery, 1888b: 350; Dalla Torre, 1893: 11.
 * Subspecies of fulvus: Emery, 1895j: 724; Santschi, 1931d: 408.
 * Status as species: Westwood, 1842: 80; Smith, F. 1859b: 2; Mayr, 1863: 408; Roger, 1863b: 41; Smith, F. 1871a: 335; Dalla Torre, 1893: 12; Emery, 1895j: 724; Forel, 1901a: 464; Bingham, 1903: 2; Forel, 1906b: 90; Emery, 1910b: 13; Menozzi, 1939a: 326; Chapman & Capco, 1951: 10; Wilson, 1964a: 440; Pisarski, 1970: 305; Bolton, 1995b: 179; Guénard & Dunn, 2012: 26; Bharti, Guénard, et al. 2016: 22; Rasheed, et al. 2019: 428.
 * Senior synonym of hindostanus: Emery, 1895j: 724; Forel, 1901a: 464; Bingham, 1903: 2; Emery, 1910b: 13; Wilson, 1964a: 440; Pisarski, 1970: 305; Bolton, 1995b: 179.
 * Senior synonym of laeviceps: Forel, 1901a: 464; Bingham, 1903: 2; Emery, 1910b: 13; Wilson, 1964a: 440; Pisarski, 1970: 305; Bolton, 1995b: 179.
 * Distribution: Afghanistan, India, Pakistan.
 * hindostanus. Dorylus hindostanus Smith, F. 1859b: 3, pl. 1, fig. 1, 16 (m.) INDIA (Punjab).
 * Type-material: holotype male.
 * Type-locality: India: Punjab.
 * Type-depository: BMNH.
 * Status as species: Mayr, 1863: 408; Roger, 1863b: 41; Smith, F. 1871a: 335; Dalla Torre, 1893: 11.
 * Junior synonym of juvenculus: Emery, 1888b: 350; Dalla Torre, 1893: 12.
 * Junior synonym of labiatus: Emery, 1895j: 724; Forel, 1901a: 464; Bingham, 1903: 2; Emery, 1910b: 13; Wilson, 1964a: 440; Pisarski, 1970: 305; Bolton, 1995b: 179.
 * laeviceps. Dorylus (Typhlopone) laeviceps Smith, F. 1878b: 13, fig. 2 (w.) PAKISTAN.
 * Type-material: holotype(?) worker.
 * [Note: no indication of number of specimens is given.]
 * Type-locality: Pakistan: Jhilam Valley, vii. (F. Stoliczka).
 * Type-depository: unknown (type-material lost).
 * [Misspelled as leviceps by Dalla Torre, 1893: 12.]
 * Status as species: Dalla Torre, 1893: 12.
 * Junior synonym of fulvus: Emery, 1895j: 723.
 * Junior synonym of labiatus: Forel, 1901a: 464; Bingham, 1903: 2; Emery, 1910b: 13; Wilson, 1964a: 440; Pisarski, 1970: 305; Bolton, 1995b: 179.

Description
Worker

Major

Bingham (1903): Castaneous yellow, highly polished, smooth and shining, the head, thorax and abdomen with minute scattered punctures, the head beneath near the mandibles and the apex of the abdomen with a few erect yellow hairs. Head rectangular, much longer than broad, and broader in front than posteriorly, the occiput widely emarginate; clypeus narrow, transverse; antennal carinae impressed line on the head. Thorax rectangular, depressed, slightly constricted at the pro-mesonotal suture: legs robust, short. Node of pedicel longer than broad; abdomen elongate, massive.

Length: 6.8 mm

Minor

Bingham (1903): Similar, smaller, lighter in colour.

Length: 2.5 - 4 mm

Male

Bingham (1903): Brownish yellow, the head, except the mandibles, and the antennae blaci<, the legs darker than the body, the coxae castaneous brown; the head, the coxae, the apex of the metanotum and of the pedicel, and the apical abdominal segment covered with long yellowish curly hair, the rest of the body with a very short, thin, fine, recumbent, pale pubescence; wings hyaline with a brownish tint. Head much broader than long, the vertex raised, the ocelli prominent; the mandibles long, sickle-shaped, bearing at base on the inside a rounded tubercle. Thorax massive, very gibbous in front, the mesonotum with a short longitudinal carina above the base of the wings on each side; scutellum large, prominent; postscutellum narrow, sunk between the scutellum and metanotum, the latter truncate posteriorly. Node of the pedicel longer than broad, with a strong gnomon-shaped keel beneath, convex above; legs moderately long, very smooth, polished and shining; abdomen cylindrical, long, twice the length of the head and thorax united, clavate towards the apex and slightly curved downwards.

Length: 30 - 33 mm

Shuckard (1840): Pale brown, inclining to fuscous, with lung curling hair upon the face, beneath the coxae, and at the apex of the abdomen: head black, except the antennae and mandibles, which are castaneous; face slightly tuberculated a little to the side and in front of the posterior ocelli; forehead not unusually prominent; ocelli large and disposed in an obtuse triangle on the vertex, the posterior placed on the posterior declivity of the head, closely behind the summit, and these distant not more than the diameter of one from the anterior, in front of which the face is deeply sulcated; eyes very prominent and subglobose, the scape less than one-third the length of the organ; mandibles long and slender, slightly curved, broadest at the base, whence they immediately attenuate, their return in front equal throughout; the clypeus furnished between the base of the antennae with a long flock of curling hair, and the labrum with a pair of large round compressed tubercles.

Thorax gibbous in front and at the scutellum, the latter transverse and rounded; metathorax elongate, abruptly truncated at its apex, where it is fringed; mesothorax slightly corrugated in front on each side of the two abbreviated parallel longitudinal central lines, the wrinkles parallel with the suture that separates it from the prothorax: wings subhyaline, their nervures dark brown, the radial nervure distinctly ex. tending opposite and rather beyond the inner angle of the marginal cell, where it terminates abruptly, the cubital nervure slightly undulated as far as the insertion of the recurrent nervure, beyond which to the termination of the cell it is straight and inserted at half the length of the first submarginal cell; legs castaneous, femora elongate triangular, acuminated towards the apex, the outline beneath not perceptibly rounded downwards; the trochanters of the four posterior not strictly adhering, and projecting a little beyond the lower outline of the femora.

Abdomen elongate, cylindrical, rather slender, the peduncle subquadrate or rather subglobose (its ventral portion viewed laterally angulated but hooked backwards), slightly fringed below its apex, not so broad as the following segment, which with the next is transverse, the terminal segment very pilose.

References based on Global Ant Biodiversity Informatics

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