First Record of the Exotic Ant Hypoponera ergatandria in Italy: Indoor Alate Swarms and Stinging Queens

Abstract

Until recently, Hypoponera ergatandria was commonly misidentified as H. punctatissima, both of which are widespread tramp ant species. Today, H. ergatandria has been recorded in eleven European countries, while most existing H. punctatissima records are doubtful. Its geographic origins, like in the case of H. punctatissima, remain unclear. Here, we present the first record of H. ergatandria in Italy, which also hosts H. punctatissima. We report on a large swarm of alate queens from the basement of a building in the city of Teramo, Central Italy. As reported in Florida under the name H. punctatissima, the species seems capable of producing surprisingly large alate swarms, and alate queens can become a nuisance due to their stinging ability against humans. However, Hypoponera stings are not known to pose any public health threat. Furthermore, H. ergatandria and H. punctatissima are not known to have any ecological impact and are usually confined to a very scattered distribution in Europe.

Alien ants spreading through Europe: Brachyponera chinensis and Nylanderia vividula in Italy

“…In just the last five years, six new alien species have been discovered in Italy: B. chinensis , Hypoponera ergatandria (Forel, 1893), N. jaegerskioeldi , S. invicta , Tetramorium lanuginosum (Mayr, 1870) and now N. vividula ( Schifani and Alicata 2018 , Menchetti et al 2022 , Menchetti et al 2023 , Schifani et al 2024 ). While H. ergatandria is a cryptic species of recent recognition and may potentially have been in Italy since at least several decades ( Schifani et al 2024 ), the remaining species could be introductions of the last 20-30 years, even considering the chance of a long lag time before detection ( Menchetti et al 2024 ).…”

“…Italy hosts over 20 alien ant species ( Jucker et al 2008 , Schifani 2019 , Schifani 2022 , Menchetti et al 2022 , Menchetti et al 2023 , Schifani et al 2024 ). The establishment of some of these is to be considered doubtful given the absence of further records, while no monitoring programmes for these processes exist ( Jucker et al 2008 ).…”