Camponotus candiotes

Nothing is known concerning the biology of this species (Seifert, 2019). Borowiec (2014) reports that the status of this species and its relationships to other species of the Camponotus lateralis group needs revision. It was described from Crete and recent specimens from this island well agree with type. Populations from Aegean Is., Dodecanese, mainland Greece and Turkey slightly differ from populations from Crete but are probably conspecific with typical form. Record from Croatia concerns an undescribed species of C. piceus group.

Identification
A member of the Camponotus lateralis species group. Seifert, 2019: The character combinations to identify this species can be derived from the key (also see Table 3 from this study) and the following pictures in AntWeb.org: CASENT0281578 (minor worker), CASENT0281579 (minor), CASENT0905389 (minor, syntype of C. candiotes).

Distribution
Seifert, 2019: Crete, Rhodes, Asia Minor, Georgia. Eastern parapatric sibling species of Camponotus piceus without safely confirmed range overlap. The single-specimen sample from Holomontas: Stagira, which is outside the known range of C. candiotes has a low posterior probability of p = 0.820 when run as wild-card in an LDA against C. piceus and may be misidentified. There is sympatric occurrence with Camponotus atricolor in Georgia.

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists
Palaearctic Region: Azerbaijan, Greece, Turkey.

Nomenclature

 * . Camponotus lateralis var. candiotes Emery, 1894j: 10 (w.) GREECE (Crete I.).
 * Karaman, C. et al. 2011: 187 (q.m.).
 * Combination in C. (Myrmentoma): Emery, 1925a: 68; Emery, 1925b: 120.
 * As unavailable (infrasubspecific) name: Finzi, 1928c: 791.
 * Subspecies of lateralis: Emery, 1896d: 373 (in list); Emery, 1915h: 2; Emery, 1925b: 120; Hamann & Klemm, 1976: 677 (anachronism).
 * Subspecies of piceus: Emery, 1925a: 68; Menozzi, 1936d: 304.
 * Status as species: Agosti & Collingwood, 1987a: 58; Agosti & Collingwood, 1987b: 283 (in key); Collingwood, 1993b: 195; Bolton, 1995b: 90; Petrov, 2006: 108 (in key); Legakis, 2011: 29; Karaman, C. et al. 2011: 187; Borowiec, L. & Salata, 2012: 473; Kiran & Karaman, 2012: 6; Karaman, C. & Aktaç, 2013: 51 (in key); Borowiec, L. 2014: 28; Lebas, et al. 2016: 138; Borowiec, L. & Salata, 2018: 4; Salata & Borowiec, 2018c: 43; Seifert, 2019b: 24.

Type Material
Seifert, 2019: Investigated were 4 syntype workers labeled ‘Creta (Cecconi) Omalo s Cata.’ [last word of label illegible], ‘SYNTYPUS Camponotus lateralis candiotes Emery, 1894’, ‘C. lateralis var. candiotes Eme’ and 3 syntype workers labeled ‘Creta (Cecconi) La C.’ [last word of label illegible], ‘SYNTYPUS Camponotus lateralis candiotes Emery, 1894’, ‘ANTWEB CASENT0905389’; all material.

Taxonomic Notes
Seifert, 2019: Both syntype series are clearly allocated to the cluster of 17 samples given in the next paragraph if run as wild-card in a 5-class LDA considering the five related species shown in Tab. 3 – the series with four syntypes is assigned with p = 0.9998 and that with three syntypes with p = 1.0000.

The exploratory data analyses NC-part.hclust, NC-part.kmeans, NC-NMDS-k-means and NCWard provided partially contradictory results regarding the heterospecificity of C. candiotes and C. piceus when CS and all 12 RAV-corrected shape and seta characters are considered. NC-Ward suggested C. candiotes to form a separate cluster with only one sample being misplaced (error 1.1 % in 87 samples). However, both NC-part. hclust and NC-part.kmeans did not confirm the presence of more than one cluster. Accepting the hypothesis formed by NC-Ward, a stepwise LDA was run which reduced the considered data set to the characters CL/CW1.25, SL/CS1.25, ScI1.25, MGr/CS1.25, nSc1.25 and PrL/CS1.25. Under this setting, NC-part.hclust fully confirmed the hypothesis formed by NC-Ward with three samples of C. piceus remaining unclassified – i.e., being placed as outliers. NC-NMDS-k-means clustering fully confirmed the hypothesis of NC-Ward but NC-part.kmeans, however, failed again to confirm the presence of two clusters (Fig. 13). With three exploratory data analyses confirming the final species hypothesis and one failing, I hypothesize C. candiotes to represent an eastern parapatric sibling species of C. piceus. The classification error in 180 individual workers is 1.1 % by an LDA and 1.7 % by a leave-one-out cross-validation LDA.

References based on Global Ant Biodiversity Informatics

 * Borowiec L. 2014. Catalogue of ants of Europe, the Mediterranean Basin and adjacent regions (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Genus (Wroclaw) 25(1-2): 1-340.
 * Borowiec L., and S. Salata. 2012. Ants of Greece - Checklist, comments and new faunistic data (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Genus 23(4): 461-563.
 * Borowiec L., and S. Salata. 2018. Notes on ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of Samos Island, Greece. Annals of the Upper Silesian Museum in Bytom Entomology 27: 1-13.
 * Collingwood, C. A. 1993. A Comparitive Study of the Ant Fauna of Five Greek Islands. Biologia Gallo-hellenica. 20,1:191-197
 * Collingwood, C. A. "A comparative study of the ant fauna of five Greek islands." Biologia Gallo-Hellenica 20 (1993): 191-197.
 * Czechowski W., A. Radchenko, W. Czechowska and K. Vepsäläinen. 2012. The ants of Poland with reference to the myrmecofauna of Europe. Fauna Poloniae 4. Warsaw: Natura Optima Dux Foundation, 1-496 pp
 * Emery C. 1886. Saggio di un catalogo sistematico dei generi Camponotus, Polyrhachis e affini. Memorie della Reale Accademia delle Scienze dell'Istituto di Bologna 5: 363-382
 * Emery, C. "Alcune formiche dell'isola di Creta." Bull. Soc. Entomol. Ital. Resoc. Adun. 26 (1894): 7-10.
 * Emery, C. "Escursioni zoologiche del Dr. Enrico Festa nell'Isola di Rodi. XII. Formiche." Bollettino del Museo di Zoologia ed Anatomia Comparatadella Reale Università di Torino 30 (1915): 1-7.
 * Hamann H. H. F., and W. Klemm. 1976. Ergebnisse der von Dr. O. Paget und Dr. E. Kritscher auf Rhodos durchgeführten zoologischen Exkursionen. XVI. Formicidae. Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien 80: 669-679.
 * Karaman C., N. Aktac, and K. Kiran. 2009. Ants of the genus CamponotusMayr, 1861 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in the Kaz Mountains, Turkey, with descriptions of sexuals of Camponotus candiotes Emery, 1894 and Camponotus ionius Emery, 1920. Tubitak 35(2): 183-197.
 * Menozzi C. 1929. Ricerche faunistiche nelle isole italiane dell'Egeo. Imenotteri (formiche). Archivio Zoologico Italiano. 13: 145-146.
 * Salata S., L. Borowiec, and A.Trichas. 2018. Taxonomic Revision of the Cretan Fauna of the Genus Temnothorax Mayr, 1861 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), with Notes on the Endemism of Ant Fauna of Crete. Annales Zoologici (Warsaw) 68(4): 769-808.
 * Salata S., and L Borowiec. 2017. Species of Tetramorium semilaeve complex from Balkans and western Turkey, with description of two new species of (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Myrmicinae). Annales Zoologici (Warsaw) 62:279–313.
 * Salata S., and L. Borowiec. 2018. A new species of the ant genus Lasius Fabricius, 1804 from Crete (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). ZooKeys 789: 139–159.
 * Salata S., and L. Borowiec. 2018. Taxonomic and faunistic notes on Greek ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Annals of the Upper Silesian Museum in Bytom Entomology 27: 1-51.
 * Seifert B. 2019. A taxonomic revision of the members of the Camponotus lateralis species group (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from Europe, Asia Minor and Caucasia. Soil Organisms 91:7–32.