William Morton Wheeler.
Note on the Brazilian Fire-ant, Solenopsis saevissima F. Smith.
Psyche 23(5):142-143, 1916.

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142 Psyche [October
NOTE ON THE BRAZILIAN FIRE-ANT, SOLENOPSIS SJEVISSIMA F. SMITH.
While discussing the various North American forms of Solenop- sis geminata Fabr. in a recent paper1 1 stated that the ant described many years ago as Myrmica scevissima by Frederick Smith from specimens taken by Bates at Para, is, in all probability, identical with the one later called Solenopsis pylades by Forel. My reasons for making this statement were these: "In the first place, Smith's description is unusually good and applies perfectly to the typical yellow pylades. In the second place, his specimens were received from Bates, who gives an interesting account of the habits of this 'fire-ant' in Brazil. Moreover, Mr. W. M. Mann, who collected extensively in the region where Bates collected his specimens and made his observations, tells me that it is there the only common and widely distributed Solenopsis, and the numerous specimens collected by ~r.z~ann prove to be the typical pylades Forel." Forel, however, will not assent to this opini~n.~ He says that smithmentions a worker major and a worker minor in his descrip- tion, whereas it was precisely the feeble polymorphism of the worker that led to the separation of pylades from geminata. Surely Forel, who has had to spend so many precious hours in the inter- pretation of Smith's inadequate and faulty specific descriptions, ought not to regard his statements concerning major and minor workers as meaning anything more than a perceptible difference in size. My critic, however, completely ignores the second and third points of my contention, which to me seemed to be the more important.
In order to settle the matter, I sent several specimens of the typical yellow pylades Forel, taken by Dr. Mann at Para, to my friend, Mr. Horace Dornisthorpe, with the request that he com- pare them with the types of Smith's savissima in the British Mu- seum. He writes me under date of July 3 as follows: "I compared ISome Additions to the North American Ant-Fauna. Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 34,
1915, p. 395.
t Fourmis du Congo et d'autres provenances r6colt4es par MM. Hermann Kohl, Luja, Mayne, etc.
Rev. Suisae Zool., 2t, 1916, p. 459.
Pu&e 23:142 II'116). http //psyche enlcliib ore/23/21.142 him1



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