Talk:Solomon Islands

Dubious Records for Solomon Islands Species List
Future analyses of faunal lists for the Solomons are advised to take the following records from Sarnat et al (2013) into consideration.

"The following taxa were reported from the Solomon Islands, but are not believed to occur there either because the records were based on misidentified material or erroneous interpretation of locality data."

"Camponotus pallens (Le Guillou, 1842): 316. Type locality: Tonga, Vavao. The website Antwiki.org, accessed 5 October 2012, listed this species under its Solomon Island webpage. The list was generated by extracting all species for which the Solomon Is. were listed as the type locality from the Bolton Catalog (Bolton et al. 2006). Although there are several Vavao islands in the Pacific (including in the Solomon Is.) the original description lists the type locality as Vavao (íles des Amis), which suggests Tonga (often referred to in older literature as the ‘Friendly Islands’) is the more likely country. Moreover, the species does not appear in any of the reviewed literature as occurring in the Solomons."

"Camponotus reticulatus Roger, 1863: 139. Type locality: Sri Lanka. The first record of C. reticulatus Roger appeared in Wilson (1962). Wilson explicitly applied C. reticulatus Roger to the Solomons material that Wheeler (1934) referred to as C. reticulatus subsp. bedoti Emery. In following the current classification (Bolton 2012), we accept C. bedoti Emery as a valid species, and apply that name to all the material from the Solomons referred to as C. reticulatus Roger. The decision to do so is somewhat arbitrary given the current state of taxonomy for Indo-Australian Camponotus, but we believe that both names refer to the same species in the Solomons."

"Hypoponera pallidula (Emery, 1900): 320. Type locality: New Guinea. Mann (1919) reported this species as occurring in the Solomon Is., but Wilson (1958b) believed Mann’s specimens belonged to Ponera sororcula (= Hypoponera sororcula) Wilson."

"Leptogenys laeviceps (Smith, 1857): 69. Type locality: Borneo. Mann (1919) reported this species as occurring in the Solomon Islands, but Wilson (1958a) considered Mann’s specimens to be a mixed series, part of which belong to Leptogenys diminuta Smith, F. and the other part to Leptogenys oresbia Wilson."

"Odontomachus haematodus (Linnaeus, 1758): 582. Type locality: “America meridionali.” It is presumed that specimens referred to as O. haematodus by Mann (1919), Wheeler (1934; 1935a) and E. S. Brown (1959) prior to Wilson’s (1959b) revision belong instead to O. simillimus Smith, F."

"Odontomachus insularis Guérin-Méneville, 1844: 423. Type locality: Cuba. Forel (1910) reported this species as occurring in the Solomon Is., but it is more likely that this was a misidentification and that the specimens he examined belong to Odontomachus simillimus Smith, F. Odontomachus insularis is not known from the Old World and was not included in Wilson (1959c)."

"Pheidole punctulata Mayr, 1866: 899. Type locality: South Africa. Forel (1910) reported this species as occurring in the Solomon Is., but it is more likely that the specimens he examined belong to the cosmopolitan tramp Pheidole megacephala."

"Philidris cordata (Smith, F. 1859): 137. Type locality: Indonesia, Aru I. In his introduction, Greenslade (1972) treated Iridomyrmex cordatus (= Philidris cordata) Smith, F. as the senior synonym of I. cordatus var. myrmecodiae (= P. myrmecodiae) Emery. However, P. myrmecodiae has been accepted as a valid species since 1903 (Bolton 2012; Shattuck 1994). The correct name for the Solomons material would require comparison against type material for both taxa. In the meantime, our decision to use P. myrmecodiae rather than P. cordata reflects our belief that (1) insofar as the Solomon Is. are concerned, the use of both names refer to the same species; and (2) there is no taxonomic evidence proposed by Greenslade that Mann’s (1919) use of P. myrmecodiae was misapplied."

"Tetramorium obesum André, 1887: 294. Type locality: India. Mann (1919) misidentified a series of specimens as belonging to T. obesa André that Bolton (1976) subsequently described as Tetramorium vombis. We assume here that the specimens referred to as T. obesum by Taylor (1976) are also T. vombis."

Pheidole fuscula
Mann (1921) lists Pheidole fuscula Emery as occurring in the Solomon Islands. However, examination of specimens that Mann identified as P. fuscula do not concur with Emery's type series. Initial molecular analysis of a specimen matching those collected and identified by Mann indicate that what he identified as fuscula is morphologically and evolutionarily distant from specimens included in the analysis that match Emery's fuscula (Economo et. al, unpublished data). Mann's specimens are provisionally being treated as belonging to a species referred to as Pheidole sp. EPEM070 that also occurs in New Guinea and elsewhere in the Pacific (Economo et. al, unpublished data).