JOURNAL 



OF 



ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 



OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE ASSOCIATION OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGISTS 



Vol. I DECEMBER, 1908 No. 6 



A EUROPEAN ANT (MYRMICA LEVINODIS) INTRO- 

 DUCED INTO MASSACHUSETTS 



It is surprising that very few ants have been introduced into North 

 America from Europe, notwithstanding the great facilities for trans- 

 portation between the two countries, the similarity of their climatic 

 and physiographic conditions and the close affinities of their ant- 

 faunas. One species only, Tetramorium cespitum, has been recorded 

 as of European provenience, and this, though of many years' resi- 

 dence among us, is still confined to the Atlantic States (Connecticut 

 to Maryland). I have recently come upon a second ant which must 

 have been introduced into Massachusetts. Early in September I found 

 a large colony of Myrmica levinodis Nylander in the grass at the edge 

 of the Arnold Arboretum, a few steps from the Bussey Institution, at 

 Forest Hills, Mass. The workers were attending plant-lice {Aphis 

 sp. near rumicis) on a few stalks of Chenopodium album very near 

 their nest. Some days later a second colony was discovered at the 

 edge of Franklin Park, about a mile from the Arboretum. Early in 

 October a third colony was seen on a lawn near the postoffice in 

 Jamaica Plain. Though by no means common, it is certain that this 

 ant has begun to spread over the country about Forest Hills. 



M. levinodis was formerly regarded as one of a number of sub- 

 species of a single circumpolar species, Myrmica rubra L. Emery^ has 

 recently raised the subspecies scabrinodis, sidcinodis, etc., to specific 

 rank, but has retained levinodis and ruginodis as subspecies of rubra. 

 It is clear, as he remarks, that Linne must have described one or both 

 of these forms as rubra, since he introduced into his diagnosis the 



^Beitrage zur Monographle der Formiciden des palaarktischeu Fauuen- 

 gebiets. Deiitsch. Ent. Zeitschr., 1908, pp. 165-182. 



