Cataglyphis savignyi (Dufour)

Agosti, Donat, 1990, Review and reclassification of Cataglyphis (Hymenoptera, Formicidae), Journal of Natural History 24, pp. 1457-1505 : 1490

Cataglyphis savignyi (Dufour)

Formica savignyi Dufour, 1862: 141 . Lectotype male, Egypt (leg. Dufour) [here designated.] [Fig. 1. pi. 20 (male), fig. 2, pi. 20 in Savigny, 1826.] [see note below.], MNHP [examined], [Later changes: = Cataglyphis viaticus , Synonymy by Emery and Forel, 1879: 449; Cataglyphis (Cataglyphis) bicolor st. nodus var. savignyi, Santschi, 1929a: 45 , name unavailable; Cataglyphis savignyi, Billen, 1989: 301 .]

Note. In the Dufour collection (MHNP) are two groups of specimens with savignyi labels, one with two damaged workers from Gizeh and a second with one damaged male (with dissected genitalia in an attached vial on the same pin) and one worker from North Africa. The workers belong to the mauritanicus complex of the altisquamis species-group and the male to the niger complex of the bicolor species-group. Since the male genitalia seem to show the characters of the greatest phylogenetic significance the male is chosen as lectotype.

Billen (1989) used savignyi as a specific name in a publication on morphology of the cloacal gland without further explanation. A final placement of the voucher specimen is difficult as the range of variation of all the species of the bicolor species-group is not known yet. The analysis of the chemical compounds of the Dufour’s gland shows a different pattern from those of niger and an as yet unidentified species of the nodus complex (Morgan et al., personal communication).