W. L. Brown, Jr.
Some Synonymies in the Ant Genus Camponotus.
Psyche 63(1):38-40, 1956.

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SOME SYNONYMIES IN THE
ANT GENUS CAMPONOTUS
BY WILLIAM L, BROWN, JR.
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University Ant specialists have long since "lost control" of the ants genus Camponotus Mayr. Somewhere between one and two thousand names of species, subspecies and varie- ties currently stand in the books, and the fifty or so subgeneric names in use are probably not all familiar to any single pair of myrmecological ears. Small samplings of different parts of the world fauna, and the few larger works like Creighton's book on the ants of North America, reveal that the taxonomy of the genus is in a very con- fused state. It appears that a great many, perhaps a majority, of the subspecies and varieties are straight synonyms, as are also a goodly percentage of the full species. Other varieties and subspecies are certainly good species in the biological sense, even though morphological differences separating them may be relatively weak in conventional terms. The job of revising Camponotus is probably too great for one man to attempt, even if any specialist were game enough to try, during a normal life span; there are just too many names to deal with. A piecemeal attack therefore seems to afford the best chance of reducing the genus to a reasonable number of species, a number small enough to attract revisers of the future. One class of synonymies especially should be published as soon as detected; I refer to the cases where types of two forms can be compared directly. At the Museum of Comparative Zoology, which now houses the largest and most complete collection of ants in existence, the con- stant accession of types by exchange, and examination of still others by loan, permits the certain detection of many obvious synonyms that would otherwise be very uncertainly identified from their descriptions. It seems wise to have such synonymies enter the published record as they are made, even if the record consists of short notes. If properly set up, such notes will be caught and listed, with their new synonymy, in the Zoological Record, and will thus become even more widely disseminated. Every certain 38
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19561 Brown - . Camponotus 39
synonymy properly listed and justified is a further step toward the eventual fulfillment of a badly needed revision. Camponotus acvapimensis Mayr
Camponotus acvapimensis Mayr, 1862, Verh. z001.-bot. Ges. Wien, 12 : 664, worker minor. Type loc. : Akwapim Mts., Gold Coast.
Cam ponotus akwapimensis ( !) var. Poultoni Forel, 1913, Rev. Zool. Afr., 2: 353, "female," recte worker. Type loc. : Lagos, Nigeria. NEW SYNONYMY.
Carupmotus (filyrmoturba) acvaphensis, Wheeler, 1922, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 45: 948, with var. poultoni, p. 949 ; synonymy and bibliography.
Ca,mponotzis (Myrmopyromis) flavosetosus Donisthorpe, 1945, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., (11) 12 : 271, soldier, worker. Type loc. : near Flabo Falls, 1200 feet, British Togoland. NEW SYNONYMY.
This is one of the common ants in many parts of Equa- torial Africa. Variation at single localities, and even within colonies, extends to include Forel's var. poultoni as he described it. I have examined a worker paratype of flavosetosus and found it an average acvapimensis example. Camponotus testaceipes (F. Smith)
Formica, testaceipes F. Smith, 1858, Cat. Hym. Brit. Mus., 6: 39, worker. Type loc.: King George Sound, Western Australia.
Camponotus (Myrmophyma) darlingtoni Wheeler, October, 1934, Jour. R. Soc. W. Australia, 20: 160, workers max.. med., min. ; female. Type loc. : Margaret River, Western Australia ; nec C. (Myrmocladoecus) sanctaefidei darling- toni Wheeler, November (!), 1934. NEW SYNONYMY. Camponotus (Myrmophyma) rottnesti Donisthorpe, 1941, Ent. Mon. Mag., 77: 239, nom. pro C. (Myrmophyma) darlingtoni Wheeler, 1934. NEW SYNONYMY. Dr. E. 0. Wilson has kindly compared types of C. testaceips in the British Museum with syntypes of C. darlingtoni (Margaret River series) sent to him from the Museum of Comparative Zoology; he judges them to be of the same species. This situation was previously thought to hold, even though Wheeler reported upon specimens he identified as the true C. testaceipes in the same paper in



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40 Psyche [March
which he described darlingtoni. This species is quite variable in color in Western Australia, where it is a com- mon inhabitant of the sand plains paralleling the coast from Geraldton around to the country east of Esperance. Camponotus hartogi For el
Camponotus Hartogi Forel, 1902, Rev. Suisse Zool., 10: 500, worker. Type loc.: Yarra Districts, Victoria, Australia.
Camponotus (Myrmosaga) f erruginipes Crawley, 1922, Ent. Mon. Mag., (3) 8: 125, worker major. Type loc.: Healesville, Victoria. NEW SYNONYMY.
The types of Crawley's and Forel's species come from the same general area to the east of Melbourne, and there seems little doubt that both descriptions apply to the same common species of black Camponotus with red legs found in this area by many collectors, including myself. The species occurs in and around the cool, rainy highlands of Victoria, New South Wales and southeastern Queens- land. It is abundant near the summit of Mt. Donna Buang (Brown) and on the Bogong High Plains (5600-6000 ft., F. E. Wilson leg.) in snow-gum and snow-grass woodland. Camponotus whitei Wheeler
Camponotus (Myrmosphincta?) whitei Wheeler, 1915, Trans. R. Soc. S. Australia, 39: 818, pi. 66, fig. 8, worker minor. Type loc.: Flat Rock Hole, Musgrave Ranges, S. Australia.
Camponotus (Myrmosaulus) scutellus Clark, 1930, Proc. R. Soc. Victoria, Melbourne, (n.s.) 42: 123, fig. 1, nos. 9, 10, workers maj., min. Type loc. : Tammin, W. Australia (by present selection). NEW SYNONYMY. Types of scutellus (MCZ) compare well with a series of whitei determined by Wheeler, collected by A. M. Lea at Port Lincoln, South Australia. This curious little species ranges very widely in the arid and semiarid parts of the southern half of Australia. It is known from the Vic- torian mallee country (Sea Lake, leg. J. C. Goudie), from many parts of South and Western Australia, and from as far north as Alice Springs (Brown) in central Aus- tralia and Mullewa in Western Australia (W. M. Wheeler leg.).




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