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.

Unusual petiole shape in Lasius umbratus

In my last post I mentioned photographs of a queen ant that were posted to the BWARS discussion group. I asked the collector to send the specimen so that it could be identified properly and I've now had the opportunity to look at it.

It is a Lasius umbratus queen, which was correctly guessed by Andrew Jarman (my guess wasn't even in the right genus). The L. umbratus group is difficult, so I worked the specimen through a number of keys, but it was the head measurements in Seifert (1988) that gave the least ambiguous answer.

The petiole, the interesting thing about this specimen, is as unusual as it appeared in the original photographs taken by Claes-Göran Magnusson. So as to give a clearer impression I've taken some images of my own. The petiole in L. umbratus usually is emarginate, but it can be seen from these photographs that the emargination is much deeper, almost to the level of the anterior peduncle.