Messor minor (André 1883)

Schifani, Enrico, Csősz, SÁndor, Viviano, Roberto & Alicata, Antonio, 2021, Ant diversity on the largest Mediterranean islands: on the presence or absence of 28 species in Sicily (Hymenoptera, Formicidae), Natural History Sciences 8 (1), pp. 55-70 : 64

9. Messor minor (André 1883)

This is a Mediterranean species recorded from the Canary Islands, east to Iran (Barquin, 1981; Paknia et al., 2008), with Naples ( Italy) as its type locality (Santschi, 1927). André (1883) considered M. minor as inhabiting Italian Peninsula, Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily. Subsequently, two subspecies of very dubious taxonomic value were described from the Island of Capri and Calabria respectively ( M. minor capreensis Santschi 1927 and M. minor calabricus Santschi 1927 ; see Santschi, 1927). André (1883) did not mention any specific locality in Sicily to support his claim. While numerous records of M. minor were subsequently produced from all other regions he mentioned (see Baroni Urbani, 1971), the only Sicilian record (Taormina village) was published by Kutter (1927). Our field investigations confirm the widespread presence in Sicily of only three taxa: M. bouvieri Bondroit 1918 , M. capitatus (Latreille 1798) , and M. ibericus Santschi 1931 (also see Schifani & Alicata 2018). However, a taxonomic revision of M. bouvieri and the similar North African forms is needed to clarify the identity of the Sicilian population (presently considered a disjunct population of a Franco-Iberian species). Here we only mention that the Sicilian M. bouvieri , even though usually reported as an entirely jet black species, can sometimes show red or violet colour patches. On the other hand, the iconic bicoloured pattern of M. minor is just one of different phenotypic variation of the species (Santschi, 1927), and even near its type locality much darker phenotypes are common (V. Gentile, pers. comm.). It is likely that Kutter (1927) based his identification on the chromatic aspect of some M. bouvieri specimens, instead of using much more reliable characters, such as chaetotaxy. In addition, it is already established that some old Sicilian records of M. minor are to be referred to M. bouvieri (Baroni Urbani, 1971) . The genus Messor in Southern Italy awaits a proper taxonomic revision, which may be complicated by relatively common hybridization and backcrossing events even between relatively distantly related species (Steiner et al., 2011). However, we do not consider M. minor as present in Sicily, and we consider doubtful the M. minor calabricus records from the nearby Aeolian Islands (Lo Cascio & Navarra, 2003; Schär et al., 2020; Turrisi et al., 2020).