Taxonomic identity of the ghost ant, Tapinoma melanocephalum (Fabricius, 1793) (Formicidae: Dolichoderinae)

Guerrero, Roberto J.

doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4410.3.4

Cited by 1,181 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…In a small taxonomic revision, GUERRERO (2018) synonymized seven taxa with Tapinoma melanocephalum (FABRICIUS, 1793): Tapinoma nana (JERDON, 1851), Tapinoma pellucida (SMITH, 1857), Tapinoma familiaris (SMITH, 1860b), Tapinoma melanocephalum coronatum (FOREL, 1908), Tapinoma melanocephalum malesianum (FOREL, 1913), Tapinoma australis (SANTSCHI, 1928) and Tapinoma luffae (KURIAN, 1955). After examining z-stack photos of type specimens presented in www.antweb.org and by GUERRERO (2018), these synonymizations appeared reasonable to me in five taxa. In the two remaining taxa, T. nana and T. luffae, no counterevidence to GUERRERO's statements is possible because of missing type specimens and insufficient original description in the former taxon and presence of only slides of dissected male type specimens in the latter one (SINGH et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 76%

“…The photo files included 6 samples of Tapinoma indicum and T. minutum. The basis for morphometric evaluation of pictures were z-stack photographs of workers provided by www.antweb.org and one photo in GUERRERO (2018). Photo evaluation, which inevitably has a lower precision than direct stereomicroscopy, appeared promising because all four species considered here appeared easily separable.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The previous concept of the cosmopolitan pest ant Tapinoma melanocephalum (Fabricius, 1793) includes two species (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Tapinoma)

Seifert

2022

Osmia

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Tapinoma melanocephalum (Fabricius, 1793), known under the vernacular name Ghost Ant and being a widely distributed cosmopolitan tramp species with significant pest status, has been considered long-since to represent a single species. Yet, investigation of 83 worker samples from the whole globe provided evidence that the Ghost Ant consists of two species: 8.4 % of the samples belonged to the new species T. pithecorum sp. nov. whereas 91.6 % were classified as T. melanocephalum. Absence of mixed samples indicates that T. melanocephalum and T. pithecorum sp. nov. do not represent morphs of the same species. T. pithecorum sp. nov. is known from a greenhouse finding in Germany and outdoor populations from the south of the Arabian Peninsula, Pakistan, India, Malaysia and the Fiji and Christmas Islands. The phenotypical separation of the new species from other minute Tapinoma species of Orientalic, Indo-Australian and Australasian origin is very clear, allowing identification even by evaluation of z-stack photos. A detailed argumentation is presented that Tapinoma pellucida (Smith, 1857), T. coronatum (Forel, 1908), T. malesianum (Forel, 1913), T. australis (Santschi, 1928), T. australe (Santschi, 1928), T. luffae (Kurian, 1955), T. wallacei (Guerrero, 2018) and T. jerdoni nom. nov. should be considered as synonyms of T. melanocephalum. Synomymies of T. melanocephalum and T. pithecorum sp. nov. with T. indicum (Forel, 1895) and Tapinoma minutum (Mayr, 1862) are clearly excluded by morphometric data. Diagrams of principal component analyses, photos, a key as well as a morphometric table to separate these four species are presented. In a concluding section, is argued that the true number of species related to these four species is much larger than presently known and a warning is given regarding careless use of pigmentation characters in ant identification.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 76%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The previous concept of the cosmopolitan pest ant Tapinoma melanocephalum (Fabricius, 1793) includes two species (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Tapinoma)

Seifert

2022

Osmia

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“…It is a very frequent tropical species (see the taxonomic position in Guerrero 2018) and one of the most invasive ant species in the world.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemotaxonomy ofTapinomaand some Dolichoderinae ants from Europe and North Africa

Lenoir¹,

Perdereau²,

Berville³

2022

Preprint

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Cuticular hydrocarbons of some Dolichoderinae species from France and various places like Spain, North Africa, and Italy were studied. The Tapinoma nigerrimum group was particularly analyzed and replaced in the genus Tapinoma. All species were correctly discriminated and a new hydrocarbons profile was found in Spanish mountains in the T. nigerrimum group, which was provisionally named T. sp. Spain. We added numerous unknown spots for the distribution of these ants. We also tested aggression between some T. magnum colonies and it appeared that this species forms supercolonies like other invasive species, but does not form giant supercolonies like the Argentine ant

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“…Only two other ant species that occur in South America, Tapinoma melanocephalum (Fabricius, 1793) and Linepithema leucomelas (Emery, 1894), have similar colors and size that could lead to confusion. In the case of T. melanocephalum, a common invasive species, the head and mesosoma is dark brown and the gaster is pale yellow (Guerrero 2018). Linepithema leucomelas can be differentiated by the characters that define the genus: presence of a well-developed petiolar scale and mandibular dentition which presents teeth alternating with denticles (Wild 2007b).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Morphological and genetic evidence supports the separation of two Tapinoma ants (Formicidae, Dolichoderinae) from the Atlantic Forest biome

Escárraga¹,

Lattke²,

Pie³

et al. 2021

Self Cite

822

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The taxonomic boundaries of many Neotropical ant species of the genus Tapinoma are still unclear. Tapinoma atriceps and T. atriceps breviscapum are two morphologically similar taxa which occur sympatrically in the southern Atlantic Forest of Brazil. Some characters such as the scape length and head shape suggest that these taxa may be different species. We used DNA analysis and morphological evidence, including scanning electron microscopy, to evaluate the taxonomic validity of these taxa. We found distinct morphological characteristics that allow separating them as two different species, Tapinoma atriceps and Tapinoma breviscapumstatus novo, and this decision is supported by the DNA results, where Tapinoma atriceps was recovered as a lineage independent of T. breviscapum.

show abstract

Taxonomic identity of the ghost ant, Tapinoma melanocephalum (Fabricius, 1793) (Formicidae: Dolichoderinae)

Cited by 1,181 publications

References 0 publications

The previous concept of the cosmopolitan pest ant Tapinoma melanocephalum (Fabricius, 1793) includes two species (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Tapinoma)

The previous concept of the cosmopolitan pest ant Tapinoma melanocephalum (Fabricius, 1793) includes two species (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Tapinoma)

Chemotaxonomy ofTapinomaand some Dolichoderinae ants from Europe and North Africa

Morphological and genetic evidence supports the separation of two Tapinoma ants (Formicidae, Dolichoderinae) from the Atlantic Forest biome

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