Aenictus, Gómez, 2022

Gómez, Kiko, 2022, A revision of the Afrotropical species of the Dorylinae ant genus Aenictus (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) based on the worker caste, Belgian Journal of Entomology 124, pp. 1-86 : 42-43

popeyei species group

DIAGNOSIS. Unmistakable due to their massive mandibles, conspicuously different from the rest of the species in the genus worldwide with its basal half modified, globose, expanded and as big as the rest of the mandible.

Mandibles closing against the clypeus and armed with a big sharp apical tooth followed by a smaller preapical tooth. Clypeus reduced to a narrow rectangular lamella protruding from the middle of the anterior border, continuing the frontal ridges. This lamella ends in two small blunt triangular denticles, sometimes one or both eroded, its width and length smaller than the distance between the antennal sockets. Frontal ridges present and not fused, laterobasally rounded into a low vertical triangle; parafrontal ridges present but weak, with a small apical tooth pointing upwards.

Pronotum convex and propodeum flat in lateral view; transverse mesopleural groove and mesometapleural suture present but not deeply impressed. Propodeal declivity slightly convex, encircled by a well-developed ridge. Femora and tibiae with its apical half swollen.

Head, pronotum, legs, scapes and gaster glassy smooth, remainder of mesosoma, petiole and postpetiole alutaceus to reticulated, sometimes longitudinally rugulose on the mesopleurae.

This group seems to be closely related to the decolor group, as they share similar habitus and dentition, but the basal half of the mandibles differs from any other species worldwide.