Acanthoponera peruviana

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists
Neotropical Region: Ecuador, Peru.

Nomenclature

 *  peruviana. Acanthoponera peruviana Brown, 1958g: 254, figs. 6,7 (w.) PERU.

Worker
Holotype: TL 8.7, HL 1.73, HW excluding eyes 1.56 (CI 90), greatest diameter of eye 0.43, scape L 1.07, WL 2.60 mm.

Similar to Acanthoponera mucronata, but differing as follows: Head with sides more nearly straight and parallel, occipital angles rectangular. Eyes larger. Sculpture of head looser, with wider, more shining spaces between the rugae, especially along both sides of median carina and in antennal scrobes. Propodeal spines heavier and longer, approaching 0.7 mm. in L (ca. 0.4·0.5 mm. in mucronata workers), gently divergent; when viewed from the side, more definitely arched in their basal halves and less strongly elevated than in mucronata.

Shape of petiole has continuous curve formed by anterior nodal face and dorsal outline of spine. Gaster markedly depressed and somewhat broadened, with a deep constriction between post petiole and second segment, the latter slightly broader and with a conspicuous posterior impression extending forward into the main tergital surface from the depressed apical band. Second segment only feebly downcurved, and the exposed sternum correspondingly longer than in mucronata. Apical segments retracted in this specimen, but the slender sting exserted.

Gastric sculpture much coarser, denser and more opaque than in mucronata, consisting of abundant, uneven-sized punctures, slightly larger on the postpetiole than on the second segment, forming a dense irregular rugoreticulum on the sides, less dense in the middle, where narrow, shining interspaces exist on the second segment.

Erect hairs abundant, though fewer than in mucronata, but thicker, stiffer and longer. Body color bright ferruginous yellow.

Type Material
Holotype a unique worker from Monson Valley, Tingo Maria, Peru, October 26, 1954 (E. S. Ross and E. I. Schlinger leg.).