Cataglyphis nigra

This species is common at Rawdhat Khorim, Saudi Arabia, with peak abundance in June and decreasing during cooler months. Workers were collected from the following plants: Acacia gerrardii Benth (Fabaceae), Calotropis procera (Aiton) W. T. Aiton (Apocynaceae), Rhazya stricta Decne (Apocynaceae) and Ziziphus nummularia (Burm. f) Wight & Arn. (Rhamnaceae) (Sharaf et al., 2013). Pashaei Rad et al. (2018) found this species in Iran in areas with moderate to very low rainfall.

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists
Afrotropical Region: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates. Palaearctic Region: Iran, Israel, Kuwait, Oman.

This species was originally described from Israel and recorded from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Yemen (Collingwood, 1985; Collingwood and Agosti, 1996), UAE (Collingwood et al. 2011) and Syria (Santschi, 1929b) (Sharaf et al., 2013).

Nomenclature

 *  nigra. Myrmecocystus viaticus var. niger André, 1881b: 56 (w.) ISRAEL. Forel, 1913d: 434 (q.). Combination in Cataglyphis: Emery, 1925b: 265. Subspecies of viatica: Emery, 1898c: 126; of bicolor: Forel, 1908a: 15; Menozzi, 1927f: 380; Santschi, 1929b: 50. Raised to species: Collingwood, 1985: 290.