Trichomyrmex mayri

Monomorium mayri is considered one of the most common ant species of the Arabian Peninsula. It is a common species at Rawdhat Khorim, Saudi Arabia, exhibits high abundances from April to October, peaking in June and slowly declining from November to March (Sharaf et al., 2013).

Identification
Bolton (1987)

Answering the description of destructor in all respects except colour, mayri being uniformly dark brown, sometimes with a paler patch at the base of the first gastral tergite.

I have decided to retain mayri as a valid species, separate from destructor, for the time being. The colour character is admittedly feeble but appears to be consistent, and mayri does not show the tramping ability so strongly developed in destructor.

Distribution
This species is known from the Middle East (Abdul-Rassoul et al. 2013) and has been reported from Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen (Collingwood, 1985; Collingwood and Agosti, 1996), and UAE (Tigar and Collingwood, 1993) (Sharaf et al., 2013).

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists
Afrotropical Region: Mali, Niger, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates. Oriental Region: India. Palaearctic Region: China, Iraq, Israel, Oman.

Nomenclature

 *  mayri. Monomorium gracillimum var. mayri Forel, 1902c: 209 (w.) INDIA. Wheeler, W.M. 1923b: 3 (m.). Combination in M. (Parholcomyrmex): Emery, 1922e: 180; in Trichomyrmex: Ward et al., 2014: 16. Subspecies of destructor: Forel, 1911a: 24; Viehmeyer, 1916a: 132. Raised to species and senior synonym of karawajewi: Bolton, 1987: 326.
 * karawajewi. Monomorium (Parholcomyrmex) gracillimum var. karawajewi Wheeler, W.M. 1922a: 875 (w.) SUDAN. [First available use of Monomorium destructor r. gracillimum var. karawajewi Forel, 1913d: 437; unavailable name.] Raised to species: Collingwood, 1985: 270. Junior synonym of mayri: Bolton, 1987: 326.