Camponotus candiotes

Camponotus candiotes
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Hymenoptera
Family:	Formicidae
Subfamily:	Formicinae
Tribe:	Camponotini
Genus:	Camponotus
Subgenus:	Myrmentoma
Species group:	lateralis
Species complex:	sicheli
Species:	C. candiotes
Binomial name
Camponotus candiotes Emery, 1894 Specimen Labels

Nothing is known concerning the biology of this species (Seifert, 2019). Borowiec (2014) reports that the status of this species and its relationships to other species of the Camponotus lateralis group needs revision. It was described from Crete and recent specimens from this island well agree with type. Populations from Aegean Is., Dodecanese, mainland Greece and Turkey slightly differ from populations from Crete but are probably conspecific with typical form. Record from Croatia concerns an undescribed species of C. piceus group.

Identification

A member of the Camponotus lateralis species group. Seifert, 2019: The character combinations to identify this species can be derived from the key (also see Table 3 from this study) and the following pictures in AntWeb.org: CASENT0281578 (minor worker), CASENT0281579 (minor), CASENT0905389 (minor, syntype of C. candiotes).

Keys including this Species

• Key to Camponotus of Turkey
• Key to the West Palaearctic Camponotus lateralis species group

Distribution

Seifert, 2019: Crete, Rhodes, Asia Minor, Georgia. Eastern parapatric sibling species of Camponotus piceus without safely confirmed range overlap. The single-specimen sample from Holomontas: Stagira, which is outside the known range of C. candiotes has a low posterior probability of p = 0.820 when run as wild-card in an LDA against C. piceus and may be misidentified. There is sympatric occurrence with Camponotus atricolor in Georgia.

Latitudinal Distribution Pattern

Latitudinal Range: 43.91666667° to 35.05°.

North Temperate	North Subtropical	Tropical	South Subtropical	South Temperate

• Source: AntMaps

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists

Palaearctic Region: Azerbaijan, Greece (type locality), Türkiye.

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.

Nomenclature

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

• candiotes. Camponotus lateralis var. candiotes Emery, 1894j: 10 (w.) GREECE (Crete I.).
  • Karaman, C. et al. 2011: 187 (q.m.).
  • Combination in C. (Myrmentoma): Emery, 1925a: 68; Emery, 1925b: 120.
  • As unavailable (infrasubspecific) name: Finzi, 1928c: 791.
  • Subspecies of lateralis: Emery, 1896d: 373 (in list); Emery, 1915h: 2; Emery, 1925b: 120; Hamann & Klemm, 1976: 677 (anachronism).
  • Subspecies of piceus: Emery, 1925a: 68; Menozzi, 1936d: 304.
  • Status as species: Agosti & Collingwood, 1987a: 58; Agosti & Collingwood, 1987b: 283 (in key); Collingwood, 1993b: 195; Bolton, 1995b: 90; Petrov, 2006: 108 (in key); Legakis, 2011: 29; Karaman, C. et al. 2011: 187; Borowiec, L. & Salata, 2012: 473; Kiran & Karaman, 2012: 6; Karaman, C. & Aktaç, 2013: 51 (in key); Borowiec, L. 2014: 28; Lebas, et al. 2016: 138; Borowiec, L. & Salata, 2018: 4; Salata & Borowiec, 2018c: 43; Seifert, 2019b: 24.

Type Material

Seifert, 2019: Investigated were 4 syntype workers labeled ‘Creta (Cecconi) Omalo s Cata.’ [last word of label illegible], ‘SYNTYPUS Camponotus lateralis candiotes Emery, 1894’, ‘C. lateralis var. candiotes Eme’ and 3 syntype workers labeled ‘Creta (Cecconi) La C.’ [last word of label illegible], ‘SYNTYPUS Camponotus lateralis candiotes Emery, 1894’, ‘ANTWEB CASENT0905389’; all material Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Genoa.

Taxonomic Notes

Seifert, 2019: Both syntype series are clearly allocated to the cluster of 17 samples given in the next paragraph if run as wild-card in a 5-class LDA considering the five related species shown in Tab. 3 – the series with four syntypes is assigned with p = 0.9998 and that with three syntypes with p = 1.0000.

The exploratory data analyses NC-part.hclust, NC-part.kmeans, NC-NMDS-k-means and NCWard provided partially contradictory results regarding the heterospecificity of C. candiotes and C. piceus when CS and all 12 RAV-corrected shape and seta characters are considered. NC-Ward suggested C. candiotes to form a separate cluster with only one sample being misplaced (error 1.1 % in 87 samples). However, both NC-part. hclust and NC-part.kmeans did not confirm the presence of more than one cluster. Accepting the hypothesis formed by NC-Ward, a stepwise LDA was run which reduced the considered data set to the characters CL/CW1.25, SL/CS1.25, ScI1.25, MGr/CS1.25, nSc1.25 and PrL/CS1.25. Under this setting, NC-part.hclust fully confirmed the hypothesis formed by NC-Ward with three samples of C. piceus remaining unclassified – i.e., being placed as outliers. NC-NMDS-k-means clustering fully confirmed the hypothesis of NC-Ward but NC-part.kmeans, however, failed again to confirm the presence of two clusters (Fig. 13). With three exploratory data analyses confirming the final species hypothesis and one failing, I hypothesize C. candiotes to represent an eastern parapatric sibling species of C. piceus. The classification error in 180 individual workers is 1.1 % by an LDA and 1.7 % by a leave-one-out cross-validation LDA.

References

• Agosti, D.; Collingwood, C. A. 1987a. A provisional list of the Balkan ants (Hym. Formicidae) and a key to the worker caste. I. Synonymic list. Mitt. Schweiz. Entomol. Ges. 60: 51-62 (page 58, raised to species)
• Bolton, B. 1995b. A new general catalogue of the ants of the world. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 504 pp. (page 90, catalogue)
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• 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).
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• Emery, C. 1894k. Alcune formiche dell'isola di Creta. Bull. Soc. Entomol. Ital. Resoc. Adun. 26: 7-10 (page 10, worker described)
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References based on Global Ant Biodiversity Informatics

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