Temnothorax bernardi

Temnothorax bernardi
Conservation status
Vulnerable (IUCN 2.3)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Hymenoptera
Family:	Formicidae
Subfamily:	Myrmicinae
Tribe:	Crematogastrini
Genus:	Temnothorax
Species group:	palearctic
Species:	T. bernardi
Binomial name
Temnothorax bernardi (Espadaler, 1982) Specimen Labels

This species is a dulotic social parasite. During colony foundation a mated young queen penetrates a colony of the host species and throttles its queen to death. She then is accepted as replacement queen by the adult host workers. With the exception of three samples from Croatia (Split), where Temnothorax recedens was the host, all samples investigated by Báthori et al. (2024) used Temnothorax gredosi as their host species.

At a Glance

• Dulotic

Identification

Prebus (2017) - A member of the Palearctic clade.

Keys including this Species

• Key to Temnothorax corsicus species group

Distribution

Only a few records of the species are known from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain) and the Western Balkans in Croatia (Báthori et al., 2024).

Latitudinal Distribution Pattern

Latitudinal Range: 40.338875° to 40.264444°.

North Temperate	North Subtropical	Tropical	South Subtropical	South Temperate

• Source: AntMaps

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists

Palaearctic Region: Croatia, Iberian Peninsula, Spain (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.

Biology

Temnothorax bernardi is a dulotic parasite. For colony foundation a mated young queen penetrates a colony of the host species and throttles its queen to death. She then is accepted as replacement queen by the adult host workers. Known hosts are Temnothorax gredosi and Temnothorax recedens (Báthori et al., 2024).

Nomenclature

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

• bernardi. Epimyrma bernardi Espadaler, 1982a: 1, figs. 1-11 (w.q.) SPAIN. Combination in Temnothorax: Ward et al., 2014: 15. See also: Buschinger, 1995: 75.

Description

Karyotype

• See additional details at the Ant Chromosome Database.

 Explore: Show all Karyotype data or Search these data. See also a list of all data tables or learn how data is managed.

• n = 10 (Spain) (Buschinger et al., 1986; Fischer, 1987) (as Epimyrma bernardi).

References

• Báthori, F., Seifert, B., Heinze, J., Kiran, K., Karaman, C., Csősz, S. 2024. Taxonomy of the Palearctic socially parasitic Temnothorax (Myrmoxenus) ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). PLOS ONE, 19(10), e0308712 (doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0308712).
• Buschinger, A. 1989a. Evolution, speciation, and inbreeding in the parasitic ant genus Epimyrma (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Journal of Evolutionary Biology 2: 265-283.
• Buschinger, A. 1995a. Life history of the parasitic ant Epimyrma bernardi Espadaler, 1982 (Insecta, Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Spixiana 18: 75-81 (page 75, see also)
• Espadaler, X. 1982a. Epimyrma bernardi n. sp., a new parasitic ant (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Spixiana 5: 1-6 (page 1, figs. 1-11 worker, queen described)
• Prebus, M. 2017. Insights into the evolution, biogeography and natural history of the acorn ants, genus Temnothorax Mayr (hymenoptera: Formicidae). Bmc Evolutionary Biology. 17:250. doi:10.1186/s12862-017-1095-8 (The doi link to the publication's journal webpage provides access to the 24 files that accompany this article).

References based on Global Ant Biodiversity Informatics

• Blanco J. L., D. Carpi, and X. Espadaler. 2012. Tres nuevas adiciones a las hormigas de Aragón (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) Boletín de la Sociedad entomológica Aragonesa 50: 563-564.
• Borowiec L. 2014. Catalogue of ants of Europe, the Mediterranean Basin and adjacent regions (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Genus (Wroclaw) 25(1-2): 1-340.
• Heinze J., A. Buschinger, T. Poettinger, M. Suefuji. 2015. Multiple convergent Origins of workerlessness and inbreeding in the socially parasitic ant genus Myrmoxenus. PLoS ONE 10(7): e0131023. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0131023
• Lorite P., J. A. Carrillo, M. F. García, and T. Palomeque. 2000. Chromosome numbers in Spanish Formicidae. III. Subfamily Myrmicinae (Hymenoptera). Sociobiology 36: 555-570.