First discovery of the ant genus Eburopone Borowiec, 2016 (Hymenoptera, Formicidae, Dorylinae) in the Oriental realm, with description of a new species from Vietnam

By

Yamada, Aiki
Nguyen, Dai
Eguchi, Katsuyuki

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2023

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

1184

Pages

1--17

Subjects

Central Highlands , disjunct distribution , Indochina , Morphology , non-army ant dorylines , taxonomy , Tay Nguyen

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1184.109702

 

Abstract

The doryline ant genus Eburopone Borowiec, 2016 currently contains only one valid species, E. wroughtoni (Forel, 1910) from southern Africa, with a considerable number of undescribed species awaiting formal description in the Afrotropical and Malagasy regions. In the present paper, Eburopone easoanasp. nov. is described based on workers and dealate queens from a colony series collected in an evergreen forest on the Dak Lak Plateau of Vietnam (Ea So Nature Reserve, Dak Lak Province). The worker of the new species is morphologically clearly distinguished from E. wroughtoni by the combination of following characteristics: i) frontal line distinct, extending a little beyond mid-length of cranium; ii) anterior (frontoclypeal) margins of torulo-posttorular complex not forming conspicuous lobes protruding over anterior clypeal margin in full-face view; iii) mandibles when closed in full-face view forming only a little space between anterior clypeal margin and mandibles; iv) promesonotal suture faint and inconspicuous; v) abdominal segment III in dorsal view distinctly wider than long, with lateral margins only feebly convex. This represents the first discovery of the genus Eburopone in the Oriental realm, revealing the disjunct distribution of the genus. A partial sequence of the mitochondrial COI gene (658 bp) is provided as a DNA barcode for the new species. A worker-based key to the doryline genera of the Oriental realm is also provided.