Ngauratermes arue Constantino & Acioli, 2009 小凋落白蚁

Morphology

The description below is paraphrased from the original or a later revision, by caste; the source is cited at the end.

Diagnostic characters

A genus living in the leaf litter of Amazonia, its name taken from the Ticuna word ngau'ra (leaf litter). Both the soldier and the worker are dimorphic; the alate is still unknown. The original author points out that the genus has many similarities with the group formed by Tenuirostritermes, Diversitermes and Velocitermes, being especially close to the last two.

Soldier

Dimorphic. The mandibles have a distinct tooth-like projection; there are 13 antennal segments; the base of the nasus is narrow and nearly cylindrical. The head capsule of the major soldier is broad, slightly constricted behind the antennae and narrowed anteriorly at the sides; that of the minor soldier is narrow and elongate, with a marked constriction behind the antennae. Tibial spur formula 2:2:2.

Worker

Dimorphic, divided into a narrow-gap and a wide-gap form; the two forms overlap in size and cannot be separated as major and minor workers; the wide-gap form is rare, 6 of 103 workers in the type series, with a left mandibular index of 0.32. The worker has 14 antennal segments, segment 4 very short and unsclerotised; the left mandibular index is 0.35; the molar plate is broad, concave and weakly ridged. P1 is a simple tube without an apical ring; the enteric valve is conical and curved, situated posteriorly and inserted into P3 from the upper left side, weakly sclerotised and with two rings of spines.

This genus is monotypic, containing only this species; the following is the genus-level description based on the original literature; species-level measurements and intraspecific variation are given in the original.