Eciton hamata

Smith, Frederick, 1855, Descriptions of some species of Brazilian ants belonging to the genera Pseudomyrma, Eciton and Myrmica (with observations on their economy by Mr. H. W. Bates), Transactions of the Entomological Society of London (2) 3, pp. 156-169 : 161

Sp. 1. Eciton hamata .

Formica hamata, Fabr . Ent. Syst., ii. 364, 58 ;

Latr. Hist. Nat. Fourm., p. 242, tab. 8, fig. 54.

Myrmica hamata, Fabr . Syst. Piez., p. 425, 6.

Eciton hamata, Latr . Gen. Crust, et Ins., iv. 129.

Ancylognathus , Lund. Ann. Soc. Nat., xxvii.

Camptognatha , Westw. Griff. Anim. King., xv. 516, tab. 76, fig. 4.

Worker.-Length 4-\\ lines. Antennae longer than the head and thorax ; the flagellum sub-filiform and pubescent, the pubescence short and scattered ; the head very large, full twice the width of the thorax, widest in front, and armed behind with two short spines of a pale yellow-testaceous colour ; smooth, shining and thinly sprinkled with short pale hairs ; mandibles elongate, sickle-shaped, and bent suddenly inwards at their apex, forming a pointed hook ; sometimes rufo-piceous, sometimes black. The thorax, legs and abdomen of an opaque reddish yellow, the tarsi fuscous : the nodes of the abdomen without spines beneath ; the abdomen ovate ; the entire insect thinly sprinkled with pale pubescence .

This insect is exceedingly abundant in Brazil; Mr. Bates has observed its legions in processions of great extent, but up to the present time has been unable to meet with the other sexes ; this, however, he hopes to accomplish, but the societies are so numerous and the sting of the insects so severe, that an attack on one of their colonies for that purpose is not to be rashly undertaken.