6. Meranoplus gracilis ^HNS. B.M.

Worker. Length 2 1/4 lines. - Black: head convex, subopake, and finely punctured; eyes large, prominent, placed forwards on the sides of the head, the posterior angles rounded; the clypeus concave, or depressed in the middle, its anterior margin widely but slightly emarginate. Thorax longitudinally rugose, inter- mixed with deep punctures, elongate and narrowed to the base of the mesothorax; the anterior margin of the prothorax arched, with the lateral angles subacute; the posterior lateral angles of the mesothorax tuberculate; the metathorax with the basal late- ral angles rounded, and the apical ones produced into long stout acute spines. Abdomen ovate; the first node of the peduncle rugose, much narrower than the second, which is truncate at the base, rounded at the sides and behind.

Hab . Brazil (Ega). (Coll. H. W. Bates.)