Genus Dentispicotermes · 齿尖白蚁属

Morphology

The descriptions below are an adaptation of the original genus-level accounts; terms follow the meaning of the source, and the original is not transcribed verbatim.

Diagnostic characters

Soldier with slender, snapping mandibles, the head bearing a conical cephalic projection (i.e. frontal projection), and with a well-developed large yellow labial gland extending posteriorly deep into the abdomen; the genus is soil-feeding, and the worker enteric valve armature (EVA) is highly diagnostic.

Soldier

Mandibles slender, snapping; in most species the mandibles have marginal teeth (only D. brevicarinatus lacks marginal teeth); the apical hook accounts for about 1/7 of total mandible length (most species) or about 1/3 (D. pantanalis); the shape of the frontal projection (shallow/steep, triangular/narrowly trapezoidal, angle of the posterior margin with the plane of the vertex) is a diagnostic character between species.

Worker

Soil-feeding; enteric valve armature highly diagnostic, but without marked intraspecific variation.

Sources: Scheffrahn, R. H. 2024. Dentispicotermes trapezia (Isoptera: Termitidae: Amitermitinae), a new termite species from the Pantanal-Chaco Region of South America. Zootaxa 5536(3): 447–453. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.5536.3.4, pp. 447–448 This text is an adaptation, not a verbatim transcription of the original.