Miscellaneous ant collections

The last of the boring but possibly useful lists.

This covers those counties where I only have a few species recorded or in my collection. Those from Ireland and Senegal were collected by me. My parents have been good enough to collect ants for me, including from Mallorca and Austria. Specimens collected by David M. King were passed to me for identification; these came from Italy, Kuwait, Macedonia, Qatar, Turkey and the Canary Isles (not yet included). Claes-Göran Magnusson sent me a specimen from Sweden. Finally, Sabine Frohschammer passed on a few specimens from a live colony she had collected in Malasia.

Austria

Formicinae
     Camponotus
          herculeanus
     Formica
          aquilonia
          cinerea
          exsecta
          lemani
          lugubris
          paralugubris
          sanguinea
     Lasius
          fuliginosus
          niger
          platythorax
Myrmicinae
     Leptothorax
          acervorum
     Manica
          rubida
     Myrmica
          lobulicornis
          rubra
          ruginodis
          scabrinodis
          sulcinodis
     Harpagoxenus
          sublaevis

Ireland

Formicinae
     Formica
          lemani
     Lasius
          flavus
          grandis ¹
          niger
Myrmicinae
     Myrmica
          ruginodis
          sabuleti
          scabrinodis
          schencki
     Tetramorium
          caespitum

Italy

Myrmicinae
     Aphaenogaster
          ionia

Kuwait

Myrmicinae
     Messor
          ebeninus
          minor
     Monomorium
          subcomae
     Pheidole
          teneriffana ²

Macedonia

Formicinae
     Cataglyphis
          aenescens

Malasia: Sarawak

Myrmicinae
     Monomorium
          floricola

Mallorca, Spain

Myrmicinae
     Crematogaster
          scutellaris
Dolichoderinae
     Linepithema
          humile ³

Qatar

Myrmicinae
     Monomorium
          tumaire

Senegal

Formicinae
     Camponotus
          sericeus
Myrmicinae
     Crematogaster
          senegalensis
Ponerinae
     Pachycondyla
          sennaarensis

Sweden

Formicinae
     Lasius
          umbratus

Turkey

Formicinae
     Cataglyphis
          nodus
Myrmicinae
     Aphaenogaster
          ionia
     Messor
          caducus
          denticulatus
     Pheidole
          pallidula
Dolichoderinae
     Tapinoma
          festae

---

¹ I know this seems unlikely, but it's the best fit. I've had a paper half written for two years now. My problem is that I can't make my head measurements match those of Seifert's - on any Lasius. I've spoken to others and this is not a problem restricted to me! Oh, and Ireland also has L. psammophilus, with no evidence for L. alienus.
² Introduced.
³ Introduced and apparently one of the dominant species on Mallorca now: my parents only collected the two species above, despite searching hard.

Tapinoma simrothi subsp. festae

It was two months ago that I posted this image claiming it to be Tapinoma ambiguum. I was wrong - but that is nothing new!

Shortly after posting it I took the specimen to Cedric Collingwood, who glanced at it under a microscope and said 'Ah, it's festae!' Since then I've been planning to update this blog with a proper correction, but I wanted to be sure that I know why it is this species.

Why did it take so long? Basically, there is almost no information available on Tapinoma simrothi subsp. festae. It was described by Emery (1925), which I haven't been able to get hold of. I can find nothing else relating to it, aside from a mention in unchecked taxa in Agosti & Collingwood (1987). This entry has a question mark next to it, says that it's expected for the Balkan peninsula and the species is not featured in the key that followed.

Since I haven't encountered anything that clarifies the situation in the last two months, and forgot to ask Collingwood about it last time we spoke, I'm basing my acceptance of this identification on the fact that it is much larger than T. erraticum. T. ambiguum should be the same size as T. erraticum.

As far as I can make out, the size distiguishes T. simrothi from T. ambiguum and T. erraticum. T. simrothi subsp. festae is then distinguished by the shallow anteromedian clypeal notch, which is deeper than wide in T. simrothi. This makes me wonder whether it is the Tapinoma sp. mentioned in Collingwood & Agosti (1996), even though the scape index of this specimen is shorter at 97.

I expect that at some point T. simrothi subsp. festae will be raised to species status, as it seems to differ from T. simrothi no less than T. ambiguum does from T. erraticum.