Meranoplus parviumgulatus

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists
Indo-Australian Region: New Guinea.

Castes
Described from the male caste.

Nomenclature

 * . Tricytarus parviumgulatus Donisthorpe, 1947d: 188 (m.) NEW GUINEA (Indonesia).
 * Type-material: neotype worker (by designation of Boudinot, 2014: 99).
 * Type-locality: neotype Papua New Guinea: Morobe, Tekadu, Lakekamu Basin, 7°38’S, 146°34’E, 600 m., 17.i.2000, primary rainforest (T. Sears & Binatung brigade ).
 * [Note: original data: type-material: 3 syntype males. Type-locality: Indonesia: Irian Jaya (“Dutch New Guinea”), Maffin Bay, viii.1944 (E.S. Ross); CASC, specimens lost.]
 * Type-depository: CASC.
 * Unidentifiable taxon, incertae sedis in Formicoxenini: Bolton, 2003: 254.
 * Combination in Meranoplus: Boudinot, 2014: 99.
 * Status as species: Chapman & Capco, 1951: 123; Bolton, 1995b: 422; Boudinot, 2014: 99.
 * Distribution: Indonesia (Irian Jaya), Papua New Guinea).

Worker
Male. Blackish brown, legs lighter, antennae and tarsi pale yellow. Clothed with longer and shorter outstanding yellow hairs.

Head narrowed in front and behind, strongly rounded from eye to base, posterior angles rounded, posterior border small, slightly excised; mandibles very short,. sharply pointed; clypeus small, flat on disc, anterior border rounded, with a slightly raised narrow margin, sinuate at sides; eyes large, round, very prominent, situated in front of middle of sides of head; ocelli fairly large, situated on occiput of head; antennm long, filiform, 13-jointed; 'scape very short, not as long as second joint of funiculus; first joint small, short, globular, broader than the following joints, last joint a little longer than the one preceding it. Thorax short, oval, narrowed in front and behind, convex on disc; pronotum narrow, transverse, furnished with a short neck; mayrian furrows very distinct, dividing the mesonotum into two lateral lobes; praescutellum narrow, transverse, depressed, with widely separated, short, narrow longitudinal striae, the spaces between the striae deeply hollowed out; scutellum broad oval, very convex and prominent, somewhat rugosely and closely punctured; metanotum very narrow, transverse, slightly raised; epinotum finely coriaceously punctured, armed with a small tooth or tubercle on each side at angle between dorsal surface and declivity, which is somewhat rounded, declivity slightly shorter than dorsal surface. Petiole rather long, narrow, slightly narrowed to base and before margins of apex, in profile very slightly raised in middle; post-petiole considerably shorter, very slightly broader and a little higher than petiole, slightly narrowed anteriorly and posteriorly, convex on disc; gaster long oval, concave beneath, broadest at apex of first segment, which is as long as the remaining segments when extended. Genitalia enclosed in gaster.

Legs rather long and slender; no spurs to tibiae present; claws very small. Wings slightly dusky; veins and pterostigma light brown, one discoidal cell, one long cubital cell and closed radial cell, about as long, but narrower than cubital cell, present.

Long. 4, mm.

Original type material cannot be located. This consisted of three males from Maffin Bay, Dutch New Guinea, August, 1944. E. S. Ross Coll.

References based on Global Ant Biodiversity Informatics

 * Boudinot B. E. 2014. Rediscovery of Tricytarus Donisthorpe, 1947, a new genus-level synonym of Meranoplus F. Smith, 1853 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Myrmicinae). Myrmecological News 20: 95-100.