Camponotus spissinodis

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists
Palaearctic Region: Algeria.

Nomenclature

 * . Camponotus lateralis r. spissinodis Forel, 1909e: 374.
 * Replacement name for Camponotus lateralis var. crassinodis Forel, 1894d: 3. [Junior primary homonym of Camponotus mitis var. crassinodis Forel, 1892j: 230.]
 * Karavaiev, 1912a: 20 (m.); Santschi, 1929e: 164 (q.).
 * Combination in C. (Orthonotomyrmex): Forel, 1916: 458;
 * combination in C. (Myrmentoma): Emery, 1925a: 63.
 * Subspecies of lateralis: Karavaiev, 1912a: 20; Emery, 1925b: 120; Santschi, 1925g: 359; Donisthorpe, 1927a: 9; Ceballos, 1956: 313; Cagniant, 1964: 109; Cagniant, 1966b: 281.
 * Subspecies of piceus: Emery, 1925a: 68; Santschi, 1929e: 164; Santschi, 1931a: 12; Santschi, 1936c: 207; Santschi, 1932g: 4; Santschi, 1939c: 5; Cagniant, 1968a: 146; Cagniant, 1970c: 37; Baroni Urbani, 1971c: 195; Cagniant & Espadaler, 1993: 436 (in key); Bolton, 1995b: 125; Poldi, et al. 1995: 7.
 * Status as species: Cagniant, 1996b: 92; Cagniant, 2006a: 194; Borowiec, L. 2014: 42; Lebas, et al. 2016: 140.

Taxonomic Notes
Seifert (2019): This taxon has been described by Forel as Camponotus lateralis r. spissinodis from Lambessa / Tunisia. Two minor worker syntypes from labeled ‘C.lateralis Ol. ☿ r. spissinodis Forel type Lambessa’, ‘ANTWEB CASENT09110434 bottom w.’ and 3 major worker syntypes on another pin equally labeled ‘ANTWEB CASENT09110433 bottom w.’ were examined. The investigation showed that C. spissinodis is an African species related to those Eurocaucasian species of the C. lateralis group having a completely blackish dorsum of head. Among other characters, the C. spissinodis types differ from Camponotus piceus, Camponotus heidrunvogtae by the absent or very weak scape base extension (mean SCI1.25 of four syntypes 1.062) and the clearest differences to Camponotus atricolor is the much larger MGr/CS1.25 (mean 0.077), the larger SL/CS1.25 (mean 1.007) and smaller PrL/CS1.25 (mean 0.397). The relation to Camponotus candiotes appears controversial. There is no single NUMOBAT character which is clearly outside the range of C. candiotes (Tab. 3). Running a PCA of C. atricolor, C. candiotes and the syntypes of C. spissinodis, considering 12 RAVcorrected characters and cephalic size, the C. spissinodis types are placed by the first five principal components within the C. candiotes cluster. NC-part.kmeans and NC-part.hclust allocates the C. spissinodis types to the C. candiotes cluster but they appear with the latter algorithm as single-sample outlier of the C. candiotes cluster. NC-NMDS clustering places the centroid of the type series as outlier in 5 out of 15 bivariate plots of the first six stress vectors. C. spissinodis is not proposed to be synonymous with C. candiotes because of outlier placements in two exploratory data analyses and differences in two characters clearly confirmed by ANOVA tests: SL/CS1.25 (F1,42=14.23, p<0.001) and PrL/CS1.25 (F1,42=17.94, p<0.0005). Furthermore, the types of C. spissinodis show a stronger sculpture and more convex profile of dorsal propodeum and absolute size of the largest major worker exceeds the range known for C. candiotes.

References based on Global Ant Biodiversity Informatics

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 * Cagniant, H. 1968. Liste preliminaire de fourmis forestieres d'Algerie. Resultats obtenus de 1963 a 1964. Bulletin de la Société d'Histoire Naturelle de Toulouse 104: 138-147
 * Cagniant, H.. "Deuxième liste de fourmis d'Algérie, récoltées principalement en forêt (Deuxième partie)." Bulletin de la Société d'Histoire Naturelle de Toulouse 106 (1970): 28-40.
 * Cagniant, H.. "Les Camponotus du Maroc (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): clé et catalogue des espèces." Annales de la Société Entomologique de France (N.S.) 32 (1996): 87-100.
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 * Santschi F. 1925. Fourmis d'Espagne et autres espéces paléartiques EOS (Revista española de entomología) 1: 339-360.
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 * Santschi, F.. "Fourmis d'Espagne et autres espéces paléartiques." EOS (Revista española de entomología) 1 (1925): 339-360.
 * Santschi, F.. "Fourmis du Maroc, d'Algérie et de Tunisie." Bulletin et Annales de la Société Entomologique de Belgique (Bruxelles) 69 (1929): 138-165.
 * Santschi, F.. "Fourmis du Portugal." Memórias e Estudos do Museu Zoológico da Universidade de Coimbra 59 (1932): 1-3.
 * Santschi, F.. "Inventa entomologica itineris Hispanici et Maroccani, quod a. 1926 fecerunt Harald et Håkan Lindberg. Fourmis du Bassin Méditerranéen occidental et du Maroc récoltées par MM. Lindberg." Societas Scientiarum Fennica (Helsingfors) 3 (14) (1931): 1-13.
 * Santschi, F. 1908. Nouvelles fourmis de l'Afrique du Nord (Égypte, Canaries, Tunisie). Annales de la Société Entomologique de France 77: 517-534.
 * Seifert B. 2019. A taxonomic revision of the members of the Camponotus lateralis species group (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from Europe, Asia Minor and Caucasia. Soil Organisms 91:7–32.
 * Taheri A., J. Reyes-Lopez, and N. Bennas. 2014. Contribution a l'etude de la fauna myrmecologique du parc national de Talassemtane (nord du Maroc): biodiversite, biogeographie et especes indicatrices. Boletín de la Sociedad Entomológica Aragonesa (S.E.A.), 54: 225236.