Basiceros scambognathus

Distribution
This taxon was described from Brazil. It is also found in Venezuela.

Nomenclature

 *  scambognathus. Creightonidris scambognatha Brown, 1949f: 89 (q.) BRAZIL. Feitosa, Brandão & Dietz, 2007: 23 (q.m.). See also: Brown & Kempf, 1960: 178. Combination in Basiceros: Fernández, 2003d: 392; Feitosa, Brandão & Dietz, 2007: 19.

Description
Worker: Size relatively medium (TL between 4,9 and 8,7 mm). Reddish to dark‑brown in color. Integument thick and in general densely sculptured; foveolate over head disc, mesosoma with conspicuous deep to shallowly set punctuation, densely punctate over most or all the gaster. Pilosity conspicuous and bizarre; sub‑decumbent hairs abundant, spatulate, squamiform or plumose; erect abundant or sparse hairsclavate or stout and truncate. Labrum with fine sensorial hairs. Head trapezoidal, triangular or rounded posteriorly; posterior and lateral head borders always visible and clearly distinct, and either rounded or crested, or else combined into curving, continuous or near continuous crest around posterior margin of head. Dorsal surface of head flattened to depressed, slightly convex in some species. Mandibles sub‑porrect, triangular to subtriangular, with straight, opposable, multidenticulate masticatory borders; apical portion from straight to strongly bent ventrally; basal portion flat and smooth to moderately convex and sculptured in frontal view; blade narrowed near insertion, the resulting peduncle either partly exposed or entirely hidden beneath clypeus, interspace between basal mandibular margin and anterior clypeal border present to absent in varying degrees. Eyes relatively well developed (ocular index ca 11). Antennal scape flattened, broad, and lobate at the basal portion; funiculus moderately clavate with 11 segments. Mesosoma usually robust. Metanotal groove present. Propodeal teeth always triangular in lateral view, lamelliform, short, more or less acute, and connected to each other by a transverse carina. Petiole pedunculate and usually with ventral carina bearing one or more teeth. Gastric dorsum with a median longitudinal strip slightly impressed or devoid of pilosity. According to Brown (1974) Basiceros has 5 Malpighian tubules.