Camponotus oasium ninivae

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists
Palaearctic Region: Iraq, Iran.

Nomenclature

 *  ninivae. Camponotus (Tanaemyrmex) thoracicus subsp. ninivae Pisarski, 1971a: 674, figs. 10-14 (s.w.) IRAQ.
 * Junior synonym of sanctus: Radchenko, 1996b: 1202 (in key).
 * Junior synonym of oasium: Radchenko, 1997d: 809.
 * Status as subspecies of oasium: Khalili-Moghadam et al., 2019: 166.

Taxonomic Notes
Khalili-Moghadam et al. (2019) - RADCHENKO (1997) treated Camponotus (Tanaemyrmex) thoracicus subsp. ninivae PISARSKI, 1971 as a synonym of Camponotus oasium FOREL, 1890; this point of view was repeated in BOLTON's (2019) catalogue. In our opinion this is at least a distinct subspecies if not a good species of the Camponotus oasium species-group. This group contains a lot of different infraspecific taxa, but many of them are probably more or less cryptic species. Our sample from Mavraz agrees well with the types of C. oasium ninivae described from Iraq and preserved in the Museum and Institute of Zoology, Polish Academy of sciences, Warsaw, Poland (available on AntWeb CASENT0911141, CASENT0917224 and CASENT0917225). Specimens of C. oasium ninivae differ from the types of C. oasium oasium FOREL, 1890 from Tunisia not only in their paler colour but also appears slightly shiny in contrast to the matt surface of the head of C. oasium oasium, especially in major workers. We have examined specimens similar to the C. oasium oasium morphotype from Fars province in Iran, but their conspecificity with true C. oasium is also uncertain.