Taxonomic Revision Of The Striativentre Species Group Of The Genus Tetramorium (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)

Abstract

The Tetramorium striativentre species group is revised. Workers and queens of the species of this group are characterized by the unique for all other Palaearctic Tetramorium species feature: the first gastral tergite, or at least its anterior half, is very densely and distinctly longitudinally striato-punctated. We place six species to this group, including two new ones: T. striativentre Mayr, T. schneideri Emery, T. kabulistanicum Pisarski, T. saudicum Sharaf, T. sabatinellii sp. n. from Jordan, and T. pisarskii sp. n. from Afghanistan. Additions to the diagnosis of T. striativentre and T. schneideri and the first descriptions of males of these two species are provided, and a key to species of this group is compiled.

Biogeography and Ecology of Myrmica species (Formicidae: Hymenoptera) in Himalayan regions

“…Ecology: Virtually unknown, except that the type series of this species was found at altitudes between 2200 and 3200m above mean sea level. Radchenko et Elmes, 1998Holotype: worker, "Nepal, Dhorpantan, 3000m, 20.v.1973, leg. T. Martens" (NHMB); Paratypes: 15 workers "Nepal, Dhorpantan, 3000m, 20.v.1973, leg.…”

“…Altitudinal range for this species is 1829 to 3500m above mean sea level. Radchenko et Elmes, 1998Holotype: worker, "Bhutan, Dorjula, 3100m, 26.06.1972, Nat. Hist.…”

“…Lectotype (designated by Radchenko & Elmes, 1998): worker, "Tonglu, E. Himalayas, 10,000 ft., 22.04.10 (C. W. Beebe)" (MCZ); Paralectotype (designated by Radchenko & Elmes, 1998): 2 workers, with the same label as lectotype (MCZ). Distribution (a) India: West Bengal: Darjiling, Tigerhills 2500m (2); Arunachal Pradesh: Tawang 2660m (1).…”

Seven species new to science and one newly recorded species of the ant genus Myrmica Latreille, 1804 from China, with proposal of a new synonym (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)

“…Besides the efforts described above, a more extensive revisionary project was launched by Redchenko and his colleagues. Radchenko's interest was first focused on the Myrmica species of the central and eastern Palaearctic region (Radchenko 1994a−f, Radchenko et al 1997), but soon extended to the Himalaya, south-east Asia and the whole Oriental region (Radchenko and Elmes 1998, 1999a, 1999b, Elmes and Radchenko 1998). With the cardinal revisions of more species groups (Radchenko and Elmes 2001a, 2003a, 2004, 2009a, 2009b, Radchenko et al 2002, Radchenko et al 2006) and regional faunistic investigations (Radchenko and Elmes 2001, 2002, 2003, 2009c, Radchenko et al 2001, Elmes et al 2001, Elmes et al 2002, Radchenko et al 2006, Radchenko et al 2008a, 2008b, Elmes and Radchenko 2009), many new species were described from the regions with poorly known Myrmica fauna (e.g.…”

“…Ruzsky (1915) described eight species/subspecies and added Myrmica smythiesii Forel, 1902 to the Xizang fauna. Further work was carried out on the Myrmica fauna of China by later authors (Viehmeyer 1922, Wheeler 1928, 1929, 1930a, Donisthorpe 1929, Santschi 1937, Eidmann 1941, Wu and Wang 1995, Tang et al 1995, Xia and Zheng 1997, Elmes and Radchenko 1998, Wei et al 1999, Collingwood and Heatwole 2000, Wei et al 2001b, Chang and He 2001b, Zhou 2001, Zhou and Huang 2002, Xu 2002, Radchenko et al 2001, Huang et al 2004, Li et al 2005, Tie and Xu 2004, Tie and Xu 2005, Wang et al 2005, Zhou 2005, Zhou 2006, Radchenko et al 2008, Wang et al 2009, Radchenko and Elmes 2009a, Radchenko and Elmes 2010, Zhou and Qian 2010, Xu et al 2011, Zhang et al 2011, Zhou 2013), and the sporadic results were summarized in several checklists (Wheeler 1930b, Wu 1941, Chou and Terayama 1991, Huang and Zhou 2007, Guenard and Dunn 2012). Meanwhile, nomenclatural changes were made in various revisionary works.…”