— [[ worker ]].
I [introduced species]
Allied to Tapinoma and distinguished by the peculiar structure of the gizzard, the calyx of which is covered with small clear spots apparently representing thin areas in the chitin. The anus is terminal in the worker and female. The former is small and monomorphic, the latter but little larger. The anterior wings have two closed cubital cells and a discoidal cell.
The male has a short antennal scape, not longer than the two first joints of the funiculus. Wings like those of the female, but with the cubital vein more or less interrupted near the second cubital cell. In one species, T. albipes , both apterous and winged males are known to occur.
The genus is confined to the Old World tropics, ranging over the Ethiopian, Indomalayan, Papuan, and Australian Regions (Map 33). Some of the species nest in the ground, others make small carton nests on the bark of trees. T. albipes is being rapidly disseminated in the tropics by commerce and sometimes occurs in hothouses in temperate regions.
This genus is represented by a single introduced species in the T. albipes complex, which occasionally establishes residence in hothouses (e.g., in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco). The group is under taxonomic revision by Barry Bolton (pers. comm.). References: Deyrup(1991), Ogata et al. (1996), Smith (1965), Tsuji et al. (1991), Yamauchi et al. (1991).
