Protohamitermes globiceps Holmgren, 1912 球头始钩白蚁

Morphology

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

Diagnostic characters

Monotypic genus, containing only globiceps, from Sarawak, Borneo. The left mandible has a Leucotermes-type dentition (4 teeth before the basal tooth), on which basis Holmgren placed the genus in the Hamitermes branch and considered it fairly primitive within that branch. The alate is brown, thickly haired, with fairly short, hairy wings and 14 antennal segments; the worker has 13 antennal segments. The soldier is unknown.

Alate

Brown, thickly haired, the wings fairly short and hairy. The head is very broadly convex, slightly depressed around the frontal gland pore. The compound eyes are medium-sized and fairly strongly convex; the ocelli are relatively small and more than one eye diameter from the compound eyes. The frontal gland pore lies behind the middle of the head; it is large and dark. The base of the clypeus is very short and flat, without a longitudinal line, and the apex is large. The left mandible has a Leucotermes-type dentition with 4 teeth before the basal tooth; the right mandible has only 3 anterior teeth, of which the apical tooth is far shorter than the others. There are 14 antennal segments, segment 3 small. The pronotum is narrower than the head; the posterior emargination of the mesonotum is wider than that of the metanotum. The forewing scale is slightly larger than the hindwing scale; the media has 1–2 apical branches and the cubitus 12–18; all the veins are distinct, and the inner 5–7 are thickened. The cerci are thick and short; there are no styli; the tarsi are short.

Worker

The pilosity is dense and setose. The head is circular, sometimes even wider than long, thick, and slightly depressed in the middle. The frontal gland pore is large, sometimes dark. The base of the clypeus is short and flat. The mandibular base is large, and the mandibles are as in the alate. There are 13 antennal segments, fairly thick, segment 3 shorter than segment 2 and segment 4 longer than segment 3. The pronotum is short and saddle-shaped, its anterior margin not emarginate. The cerci are short and thick; there are no styli. The tarsi are short. The abdomen is thick.

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.