Sphenochernes schulzi Turk, 1953

BUENOS AIRES: Castelar, 12 km from Buenos Aires (type locality), in the nest of a leaf-cutting ant, Acromyrmex lundi (Turk 1953; Ceballos & Rosso de Ferradás 2008a).

Note 1. Turk (1953) states that “only one record is known to me of the occurrence of a pseudoscorpion with a leaf-cutting ant and that is the mention made by Wasmann (1894) of an unidentified pseudoscorpion associated with Atta discigera ”. From this it is evident that the papers of Mello-Leitão (1925, 1939a) and Bruch (1937a, 1937b) were unknown to Turk (1953).

Note 2. Sphenochernes bruchi and S. schulzi were described from two near localities (La Plata and Castelar), only 67.5 km apart, and both were found in the nests of the same ant species. It is likely that the two names refer to a single species (see Mahnert 1985), although the descriptions imply a difference in the presence ( bruchi) versus absence ( schulzi) of eyes.