Taxonomic revision of imitating carpenter ants, Camponotus subgenus Myrmopytia (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) of Madagascar, using morphometry and qualitative traits

By

Rasoamanana, Nicole
Csosz, Sandor
Fisher, Brian Lee, 1964-

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2017

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

681

Pages

119-152

Subjects

Biogeography , Camponotus , exploratory analyses , Malagasy region , NUMOBAT , species delimitation , subgenus Myrmopytia , taxonomic revision

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.681.13187

 

Abstract

The ant genus Camponotus (Mayr, 1861) is one of the most abundant and species rich ant genera in the Malagasy zoogeographical region. Although this group is commonly encountered, its taxonomy is far from complete. Here, we clarify the taxonomy of the Malagasy-endemic Camponotus subgenus Myrmopytia (Emery, 1920). Species delimitation was based on traditional morphological characters and multivariate morphometric analyses, including exploratory Nest Centroid clustering and confirmatory cross-validated Linear Discriminant Analysis. Four species are recognized: Camponotus imitator (Forel, 1891), Camponotus jodina sp. n., Camponotus karaha sp. n., and Camponotus longicollis sp. n. All four species appear to mimic co-occurring Aphaenogaster species. A diagnosis of the subgenus Myrmopytia, species descriptions, an identification key based on minor and major subcastes of workers, and the known geographical distribution of each species are provided.