Bothriomyrmex communista

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists
Palaearctic Region: Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Georgia, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Russian Federation, Slovenia, Ukraine.

Nomenclature

 *  communista. Bothriomyrmex meridionalis var. communista Santschi, 1919i: 206, pl. 2, fig. 2 (w.) UKRAINE. Emery, 1925e: 11 (m.); Karavaiev, 1927d: 341 (q.). Raised to species: Emery, 1925e: 10. Senior synonym of adriaca, mohelensis: Seifert, 2012b: 98. See also: Dlussky, 1962: 180; Atanassov & Dlussky, 1992: 195. Current subspecies: nominal plus anatolicus.
 * adriaca. Bothriomyrmex meridionalis var. adriaca Santschi, 1922a: 66 (w., not q., see Emery, 1925e; 15) ITALY. Emery, 1925e: 16 (q.m.). Raised to species: Emery, 1925e: 15. Senior synonym of ionius: Agosti & Collingwood, 1987a: 57. Junior synonym of communista: Seifert, 2012b: 98.
 * ionius. Bothriomyrmex adriacus subsp. ionius Emery, 1925e: 16 (w.) GREECE. Junior synonym of adriaca: Agosti & Collingwood, 1987a: 57.
 * mohelensis. Bothriomyrmex corsicus subsp. mohelensis Novak, in Novak & Sadil, 1941: 97 (w.q.m.) CZECHOSLOVAKIA. [Also described as new by Novak, in Kratochvíl, Novak & Snoflak, 1944: 106.] Junior synonym of communista: Seifert, 2012b: 98.

Type Material
Type locality(-ies): “Russie (Crimée) (Karawajew leg.) w”.

Original Karawajew label(-s) : “Bothriomyrmex / meridionalis Rog. / v. communista Sant. / Typus: Santschi / Магарачъ [= Magarach], 26.III.1903. / Рязанцевъ [= Ryazantsev]. № 1600.”.

Material: PARALECTOTYPES, 5 w (newly mounted, IN 314/6/1), 46 w, 5 larvae (in alcohol, IN 314/BAMS1/Karaw36).

Notes. Santschi (1919) described Bothriomyrmex meridionalis var. communista from workers collected in Crimea by Karawajew, but he did not provide precise locality information or Karawajew's sample number. Later Dubovikoff designated one specimen with the label “Crimée Karawajew” preserved in the collection of the Natural History Museum Basel (Switzerland) as the lectotype, and the second specimen with the same label as the paralectotype (these data were published first by Seifert in 2012).

In the collection of NMNH NASU we found 51 workers with the original Karawajew label “Bothriomyrmex / meridionalis Rog. / v. communista Sant. / Typus: Santschi / Магарачъ, 26.III.1903. / Рязанцевъ. № 1600” [=Magarach, Ryazantsev]. There are also 3 workers in the Karawajew collection in SIZSK with Karawajew labels “Magaratsh, Tauria, Rjasanzev, 26.III.1903”, “Bothriomyrmex meridionalis Rog. v. communista Santschi, typus”; the latter workers where designated by Kostyuk (1976) as “Syntypus”. We propose to consider all the material from Magarach as paralectotypes of B. communista.

Etymology
The species name communista is a noun in apposition and invariant in form (the spelling "communistus" is incorrect). If the author intended the epithet to be an adjective, the form would have be something like "communisticus".

Determination Clarifications
Dubovikov (2002) - The record of Bothriomyrmex communista from Armenia (Arakelyan, 1994) should be referred to Bothriomyrmex urartus.