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, Jordan, 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.

Taxonomic Notes
The taxonomic status of the Jordanian populations of Cataglyphis nigra are uncertain due to the complex genetic structure of members of the Cataglyphis bicolor group (Eyer et al. 2017; Borowiec & Salata, 2020).

References based on Global Ant Biodiversity Informatics

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