Lasius brevipalpus

The type locality is a staggered array of very shallow sand dunes with very poor herb layer that change with rather humid Artemisia steppe in deeper parts of the area. Four samples were collected from sandy soil in humid parts of the site and one sample from a sand dune. (Seifert 2020)

Distribution
Known from the Kazakhstan type locality:, 496m.

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists
Palaearctic Region: Kazakhstan.

Nomenclature

 * . Lasius brevipalpus Seifert, 2020: 57, figs. 31-32 (w.) KAZAKHSTAN.

Description
Small-sized (CS 812 µm). Large head and scape length indices are contrasted by a small palp length index (CL/ CW900 1.084, SL/CS900 1.004, MP6/CS900 0.153). Toruloclypeal distance and number of mandibular dents medium (dClAn900 4.46, MaDe900 8.53). Length of frontal pubescence hairs rather large (PLF900 32.1), clypeal pubescence dilute (sqPDCL900 4.99). Setae numbers on whole body small but pronotal setae long (nOcc900 9.0, nGen900 2.3, nGu900 2.3, nSc900 4.6, nHT900 6.2, PnHL/ CS900 0.162). Setae on dorsal plane of scape rather short, most of these protruding close to counting threshold of 20 µm which explains the variance of nSc counts. Coloration: whole body concolorous medium brown to light yellowish-brown; antennae, tibiae and tarsae pale yellowish brown. There is no species in Asia combining long scape, short terminal segment of maxillary palps, long pronotal setae and low gular setae numbers.

See table 3 in Seifert 2020 for additional morphometrics. The abbreviated names of various quantitative data shown above are defined here: Seifert 2020 Lasius characters.

Type Material
Holotype plus 5 paratype workers on three pins labelled ”KAZ: 47.42.21N, 85.00E 496 m, feucht-salzige Artemisia-Steppe leg, Seifert 2001.07.25 -81“, 12 paratype workers on four pins with the same locality label but sample No 73, 73b and 212; depository.

Etymology
The name refers to the short terminal segment of maxillary palp.