Myrmica vandeli

Radchenko and Elmes (2010) - M. vandeli inhabits almost exclusively rather warm but humid sites, such as wet meadows, marshes and bogs, where it builds nests usually in moss pads, tussocks of grass and sedge, rarely in the soil under stones. Almost always M. vandeli coexists with Myrmica scabrinodis, though it is generally a much less abundant and widespread species. The parasitic morphological features of the queens and males led Bondroit (1920a: 148) to suggest a socially-parasitic style of life for M. vandeli: “Il est probable que le M. vandeli est une espece parasite”. We have found both pure colonies and colonies of mixed M. scabrinodis and Myrmica vandeli (Elmes et al. 2003; Radchenko et al. 2003; Radchenko 2009) in the central part of its range, where environmental conditions probably are optimal for M. vandeli, we hardly ever located mixed colonies, but at the edges of its distribution (e.g. in Great Britain, Poland or Ukraine) M. vandeli often coexists with M. scabrinodis. This led us to suggest that in poor or new habitat queens of M. vandeli might resort to facultative social parasitism to found colonies, but in optimum habitats it may be able to establish colonies by independent foundation or by colony division.

Identification
Radchenko and Elmes (2010) - A member of the sabuleti complex of the scabrinodis species group. It was originally described from queens and males from France and was known only from the type series for more than 50 years, until Kutter (1977) described workers of this species from Switzerland. Elmes and Thomas (1985) showed that it is a quite common free-living species in France that can easily be discriminated from M. scabrinodis (all castes) by morphometrics.

M. vandeli possess several “socially parasitic” features, such as reduced spurs on the mid- and hind tibiae and hairy body, and by this characters is similar to Myrmica bibikoffi and Myrmica hirsuta. On the other hand, workers of M. vandeli appear very similar to those of Myrmica scabrinodis by the shape of alitrunk and waist, by the size and shape of the lobe at the bent of the scape, by the shape of frontal carinae and frontal lobes (including FI and FLI), but differ from the latter by more abundant standing hairs on the body (petiole with> 10, often> 20 hairs vs. < 10, usually ~ 8 hairs), by the presence of at least shallow medial notch on the anterior c1ypeal margin, by the less coarse, almost straight longitudinal rugosity on the alitrunk dorsum (vs. strong reticulation in M. scabrinodis) and by the reduced (to various extents) sculpture of the petiolar and postpetiolar dorsum, and finally, by its reduced tibial spurs. Males of M. vandeli have relatively long scapes and could be confused with Myrmica sabuleti, but they well differ from it by the presence of abundant long standing hairs on the scape and head margins, and by the much shorter hairs on the mid- and hind tibiae. Queens of M. vandeli differ from those of all species of the scabrinodis-group by their large size, very dark, almost black body colour, and especially by the characteristic longitudinally-concentric rugosity on the petiolar node dorsum.

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists
Palaearctic Region: Austria, Bulgaria, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Iberian Peninsula, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Fungi
This species is a host for the ectoparastic fungus Rickia wasmannii (Espadaler & Santamaria, 2012).

Nomenclature

 *  vandeli. Myrmica vandeli Bondroit, 1920a: 148, figs. 1, 2 (q.m.) FRANCE. [Also described as new by Bondroit, 1920b: 301.] Kutter, 1977c: 71 (w.). Subspecies of scabrinodis: Weber, 1950b: 211. Revived status as species: Bernard, 1967: 122; Kutter, 1977c: 71; Seifert, 1988b: 33. See also: Elmes & Thomas, 1985: 97; Radchenko & Elmes, 2003a: 230; Radchenko & Elmes, 2010: 315.

Etymology
Radchenko and Elmes (2010) - this species was named for the French biologist Prof. Albert Vandel (1894-1980) who collected the type specimens.