Paratrechina longicornis ( Latreille, 1802 )

Sharaf, Mostafa R., Abdel-Dayem, Mahmoud S., Mohamed, Amr A., Fisher, Brian L. & Aldawood, Abdulrahman S., 2020, A Preliminary Synopsis of the Ant Fauna (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of Qatar with Remarks on the Zoogeography, Annales Zoologici 70 (4), pp. 533-560 : 543-545

Paratrechina longicornis ( Latreille, 1802)

( Fig. 13 A–C)

Formica longicornis Latreille, 1802: 113 (w.) Senegal. Afrotropic.

Diagnosis. Worker. Head, mesosoma, petiole, and gaster dark brown to black-brown; body with faint bluish iridescence; antennae long with 12 segments; scapes exceptionally long, when laid back from their insertions surpassing posterior margin of head by at least one-half its length; eyes close to posterior margin of head; legs exceptionally long; pilosity characteristically long, stout, scattered, suberect to erect, greyish or whitish setae.

Material examined. Qatar, Doha, 25°17.124’N, 51°31.86’E, 08.iii.2005, 34w; Al-Dohuil , 15.iii.2005, 25°22’N, 51°29’E, (M.S. Abdel-Dayem leg.), 5w; AlRayyan , 07.iii.2005; 25°18’N, 51°25’E, (M.S. Abdel-Dayem leg.), 37w ; Al-Rayyan, 8.iii.2005, 25°18’N, 51°25’E, (M.S. Abdel-Dayem leg.), 3w, ( KSMA) .

Geographic distribution. A successful tramp species originally described from Senegal and widely spread throughout the tropical and subtropical regions worldwide ( Wetterer 2008). In the Arabian Peninsula it was reported from Qatar ( Wetterer 2008), the KSA, Oman, Yemen ( Collingwood 1985, Collingwood and Agosti 1996, Sharaf et al. 2018), and UAE ( Collingwood et al. 1997). It is also collected from Egypt ( Sharaf 2006) and Israel (Vonshak and Ionescu 2009).

Ecological and biological notes. The nesting preference includes both disturbed and wild sites ( Sharaf et al. 2017). In Socotra Archipelago Sharaf et al. (2017) collected it from dry leaf litter in the wild sites. It is a generalized scavenger and also known to attend honeydew-producing Homoptera ( Wetterer et al. 1999).

Figures

Figure 13. Paratrechina longicornis, worker, A, body in profile B, body in dorsal view C, head in full-face view, CASENT0919823 (Michele Esposito), www.AntWeb.org.