Camponotus leae

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists
Australasian Region: Australia.

Nomenclature

 *  leae. Camponotus (Myrmosphincta) leae Wheeler, W.M. 1915g: 819, pl. 66, fig. 9 (w.) AUSTRALIA. Combination in C. (Myrmosaulus): Emery, 1925b: 114.

Description
Worker minor - Length, 4.5 mm.

Head, including the mandibles, subelliptical, longer than broad, with straight, subparallel sides, slightly broader behind through the eyes than at the mandibular insertions. Behind the eyes, which are very convex and hemispherical, the head narrows rapidly to a short occipital border, so that it has no posterior corners. Mandibles with straight external and oblique apical borders, the latter armed with at least five coarse teeth. Clypeus convex, strongly carinate, its anterior border slightly impressed in the middle. Frontal area triangular, distinct, impressed; frontal groove replaced by a rather strong raised line or ridge; frontal carinae not widely diverging behind. Antennae long, scapes extending nearly half their length beyond the posterior border of the head; all the funicular joints decidedly longer than broad. Thorax long and slender; seen from above the pronotum is as broad as long, a little narrower than the head, with rounded, sloping humeri; the mesonotum and epinotum narrower, with subparallel sides, the mesonotum as long as the epinotum, but the suture obsolete between them, promesonotal suture well developed. In profile the upper surface of the mesonotum is straight and slopes gradually to the base of the epinotum, where the thorax is feebly but distinctly constricted. In profile the base of the epinotum is horizontal and only slightly convex, more than twice as long as the sloping declivity into which is passes through a very obtuse angle. Petiole of extraordinary shape, longer than high, anteriorly and posteriorly cylindrical, but surmounted in the middle by a thick node which, viewed from above, is nearly circular, but is diamond-shaped in profile, its anterior surface being straight and inclined obliquely upward and forward, the dorsal surface horizontal and very feebly convex, and the posterior surface straight and inclined obliquely backward and downward and parallel with the anterior surface. The ventral surface is almost straight. Gaster broadly pyriform, narrowed, and rather pointed in front. Legs slender; tibiae cylindrical. Opaque, except for the gaster, which is distinctly shining. Mandibles very finely shagreen and coarsely punctate. Head, thorax, and petiole uniformly and densely punctate, legs and gaster coarsely, transversely shargreen. Hairs white, long, slender, pointed, and erect, most abundant on the upper-surface of the head, epinotum, petiole, and gaster, somewhat shorter on the scapes and legs. Deep-red; mandibles and fermora more yellowish-red; mandibular teeth, anterior corners of head, front and vertex between the carinae and eyes and back as far as the occipital border, articulations of antennal funiculi, the whole gaster, basal portions of petiole, coxae, and apical third of femora, black; tibiae and tarsi reddish-brown, the tips and bases of the tibiae darker. Described from two specimens taken at Flat Rock Hole in the Musgrave Ranges. This remarkable species, easily distinguished by its singular thorax and even more singular petiole and striking coloration, is quite as difficult as the preceding species to assign to any of Forel's subgenera of Camponotus. I have places it in Myrmosphincta with a query because there seems to be no place for it in any of the other subgenera. Whether or not it should constitute the type of a new subgenus can be determined only after the discovery of the major worker.