Bothriomyrmex communista

Bothriomyrmex communista
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Hymenoptera
Family:	Formicidae
Subfamily:	Dolichoderinae
Genus:	Bothriomyrmex
Species:	B. communista
Binomial name
Bothriomyrmex communista Santschi, 1919 Specimen Labels
Subspecies
Bothriomyrmex communista anatolicus Emery, 1925
Synonyms
Bothriomyrmex adriacus ionius Emery, 1925 Bothriomyrmex corsicus mohelensis Novak, 1941 Bothriomyrmex jannonei Menozzi, 1936 Bothriomyrmex meridionalis adriaca Santschi, 1922

This is a common species in Greece, so far noted from most provinces except Crete and Cyclades. It is a very thermophilous species, and its nests were noted under stones on road side inside luminous mixed forest and in a mountain pasture (Borowiec & Salata, 2021).

Distribution

This is a common species, recorded from all Greek provinces except Crete and Cyclades (Borowiec et al., 2022).

Latitudinal Distribution Pattern

Latitudinal Range: 49.108° to 37°.

North Temperate	North Subtropical	Tropical	South Subtropical	South Temperate

• Source: AntMaps

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists

Palaearctic Region: Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Georgia, Greece (type locality), Italy, Montenegro, Russian Federation, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine (type locality).

Distribution based on AntMaps

Distribution based on AntWeb specimens

Check data from AntWeb

Countries Occupied

Number of countries occupied by this species based on AntWiki Regional Taxon Lists. In general, fewer countries occupied indicates a narrower range, while more countries indicates a more widespread species.

Estimated Abundance

Relative abundance based on number of AntMaps records per species (this species within the purple bar). Fewer records (to the left) indicates a less abundant/encountered species while more records (to the right) indicates more abundant/encountered species.

Castes

Worker

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Queen

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  Dubovikoff 2002. Fig. 11.

Male

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  Dubovikoff 2002. Figs. 12-14.

Nomenclature

The following information is derived from Barry Bolton's Online Catalogue of the Ants of the World.

• communista. Bothriomyrmex meridionalis var. communista Santschi, 1919i: 206, pl. 2, fig. 2 (w.) RUSSIA (Crimea).
  • Emery, 1925e: 11 (m.); Karavaiev, 1927d: 341 (q.).
  • Subspecies of meridionalis: Karavaiev, 1927a: 293.
  • Status as species: Emery, 1925e: 10; Karavaiev, 1927d: 340 (redescription); Dlussky, 1962: 180; Aktaç, 1977: 124; Arnol’di & Dlussky, 1978: 548 (in key); Atanassov & Dlussky, 1992: 195; Shattuck, 1994: 32; Arakelian, 1994: 75; Bolton, 1995b: 81; Gratiashvili & Barjadze, 2008: 130; Lapeva-Gjonova, et al. 2010: 33; Seifert, 2012b: 98 (redescription); Borowiec, L. & Salata, 2012: 469; Kiran & Karaman, 2012: 4; Borowiec, L. 2014: 22 (see note in bibliography); Bračko, et al. 2014: 17; Lebas, et al. 2016: 108; Radchenko, 2016: 99; Borowiec, L. & Salata, 2018: 4; Salata & Borowiec, 2018c: 43; Seifert, 2018: 247.
  • Senior synonym of adriaca: Seifert, 2012b: 98; Radchenko, 2016: 99.
  • Senior synonym of ionius: Seifert, 2012b: 98 (by implication); Radchenko, 2016: 99.
  • Senior synonym of jannonei: Borowiec, et al. 2021: 13.
  • Senior synonym of mohelensis: Seifert, 2012b: 98; Radchenko, 2016: 99.
  • Current subspecies: nominal plus anatolicus.
• adriaca. Bothriomyrmex meridionalis var. adriaca Santschi, 1922a: 66 (w.) (not q., see Emery, 1925e; 15) ITALY.
  • [Misspelled as adriaticus by Gallé, et al. 1998: 216.]
  • Emery, 1925e: 16 (q.m.).
  • Status as species: Emery, 1925e: 15 (redescription); Zimmermann, 1935: 41; Baroni Urbani, 1971c: 162; Agosti & Collingwood, 1987a: 57; Agosti & Collingwood, 1987b: 279 (in key); Shattuck, 1994: 31; Bolton, 1995b: 80; Poldi, et al. 1995: 6; Gallé, et al. 1998: 216; Bračko, 2006: 143; Petrov, 2006: 103 (in key); Bračko, 2007: 19; Karaman, M.G. 2011b: 61; Legakis, 2011: 22.
  • Junior synonym of communista: Seifert, 2012b: 98; Radchenko, 2016: 99.
• ionius. Bothriomyrmex adriacus subsp. ionius Emery, 1925e: 16 (w.) GREECE (Corfu I.).
  • [Misspelled as jonius by Finzi, 1928c: 790.]
  • Subspecies of adriaca: Donisthorpe, 1927a: 7; Finzi, 1928c: 790; Finzi, 1930d: 315; Baroni Urbani, 1971c: 163.
  • Junior synonym of adriaca: Agosti & Collingwood, 1987a: 57; Shattuck, 1994: 31; Bolton, 1995b: 81; Legakis, 2011: 23.
  • Junior synonym of communista: Seifert, 2012b: 98, 102 (by implication as adriaca synonymised under communista); Radchenko, 2016: 99.
• jannonei. Bothriomyrmex jannonei Menozzi, 1936d: 295, fig. XV, 1-4 (w.m.) GREECE (Calino I.).
  • Status as species: Shattuck, 1994: 34; Bolton, 1995b: 81; Legakis, 2011: 23; Borowiec, L. & Salata, 2012: 470; Seifert, 2012b: 102; Borowiec, L. 2014: 23.
  • Junior synonym of communista: Borowiec, et al. 2021: 13.
• mohelensis. Bothriomyrmex corsicus subsp. mohelensis Novák, in Novák & Sadil, 1941: 97 (w.q.m.) CZECH REPUBLIC.
  • [Also described as new by Novák, in Kratochvíl, et al. 1944: 106.]
  • Status as species: Kutter, 1968b: 206.
  • Subspecies of corsicus: Shattuck, 1994: 33; Bolton, 1995b: 81; Werner & Wiezik, 2007: 142.
  • Junior synonym of communista: Seifert, 2012b: 98; Radchenko, 2016: 99.

Unless otherwise noted the text for the remainder of this section is reported from the publication that includes the original description.

Type Material

Type locality(-ies): “Russie (Crimée) (Karawajew leg.) w”.

Original Karawajew label(-s) : “Bothriomyrmex / meridionalis Rog. / v. communista Sant. / Typus: Santschi / Магарачъ [= Magarach], 26.III.1903. / Рязанцевъ [= Ryazantsev]. № 1600.”.

Material: PARALECTOTYPES, 5 w (newly mounted, IN 314/6/1), 46 w, 5 larvae (in alcohol, IN 314/BAMS1/Karaw36).

Notes. Santschi (1919) described Bothriomyrmex meridionalis var. communista from workers collected in Crimea by Karawajew, but he did not provide precise locality information or Karawajew's sample number. Later Dubovikoff designated one specimen with the label “Crimée Karawajew” preserved in the collection of the Natural History Museum Basel (Switzerland) as the lectotype, and the second specimen with the same label as the paralectotype (these data were published first by Seifert in 2012).

In the collection of NMNH NASU we found 51 workers with the original Karawajew label “Bothriomyrmex / meridionalis Rog. / v. communista Sant. / Typus: Santschi / Магарачъ, 26.III.1903. / Рязанцевъ. № 1600” [=Magarach, Ryazantsev]. There are also 3 workers in the Karawajew collection in SIZSK with Karawajew labels “Magaratsh, Tauria, Rjasanzev, 26.III.1903”, “Bothriomyrmex meridionalis Rog. v. communista Santschi, typus”; the latter workers where designated by Kostyuk (1976) as “Syntypus”. We propose to consider all the material from Magarach as paralectotypes of B. communista.

Etymology

The species name communista is a noun in apposition and invariant in form (the spelling "communistus" is incorrect). If the author intended the epithet to be an adjective, the form would have be something like "communisticus".

Determination Clarifications

Dubovikov (2002) - The record of Bothriomyrmex communista from Armenia (Arakelyan, 1994) should be referred to Bothriomyrmex urartus.

References

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• Borowiec, L., Lebas, C., Salata, S. 2022. Notes on ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from three northern Aegean islands – Lemnos, Samothraki and Thasos. Annals of the Upper Silesian Museum in Bytom, Entomology 31: 1-14 (doi:10.5281/ZENODO.7346453).
• Borowiec, L., Salata, S. 2021. Notes on ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from Western Greece. Annals of the Upper Silesian Museum in Bytom Entomology 30: 1-23 (doi:10.5281/ZENODO.5571258).
• Borowiec, L., Salata, S. 2022. A monographic review of ants of Greece (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Vol. 1. Introduction and review of all subfamilies except the subfamily Myrmicinae. Part 1: text. Natural History Monographs of the Upper Silesian Museum 1: 1-297.
• Borowiec, L., Wieczorek, K., Salata, S. 2021. Review of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of the Dodecanese Archipelago, Greece. Annals of the Upper Silesian Museum in Bytom Entomology 30: 1-33 (doi:10.5281/ZENODO.5571270).
• Csősz, S., Báthori, F., Gallé, L., Lőrinczi, G., Maák, I., Tartally, A., Kovács, É., Somogyi, A.Á., Markó, B. 2021. The myrmecofauna (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of Hungary: Survey of ant species with an annotated synonymic inventory. Insects 16;12(1):78 (doi:10.3390/insects12010078).
• Dlussky, G. M. 1962. Ants of the northern slopes of the Talasskii Alatau range. Tr. Inst. Zool. Akad. Nauk Kaz. SSR 18: 177-188 (page 180, see also)
• Dubovikoff, D.A. 2002. New species of the ant genus Bothriomyrmex Emery, 1869 (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) from the Caucasus. Entomol. Obozr. 81:918-922.
• Dubovikoff, D.A., Yusupov, Z.M. 2017. Family Formicidae - Ants. In Belokobylskij S. A. and A. S. Lelej: Annotated catalogue of the Hymenoptera of Russia. Proceedingss of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences 6: 197-210.
• Emery, C. 1925c. Les espèces européennes et orientales du genre Bothriomyrmex. Bull. Soc. Vaudoise Sci. Nat. 56: 5-22 (page 10, raised to species)
• Emery, C. 1925c. Les espèces européennes et orientales du genre Bothriomyrmex. Bull. Soc. Vaudoise Sci. Nat. 56: 5-22 (page 11, male described)
• Karavaiev, V. 1927d. The ant fauna of Ukraine. Zb. Prats Zool. Muz. 2:1-52 [= Tr. Ukr. Akad. Nauk Fiz.-Mat. Vidd. 4:247-296] (page 341, queen described)
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• Santschi, F. 1919i. Fourmis du genre Bothriomyrmex Emery. (Systématique et moeurs.). Rev. Zool. Afr. (Bruss.) 7: 201-224 (page 206, pl. 2, fig. 2 worker described)
• Seifert, B. 2012. A review of the West Palaearctic species of the ant genus Bothriomyrmex Emery, 1869. Myrmecological News 17: 91-104.

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