Tetramorium caespitum

Güsten, R., Schulz, A. & Sanetra, M., 2006, Redescription of Tetramorium forte Forel, 1904 (Insecta: Hymenoptera: Formicidae), a western Mediterranean ant species., Zootaxa 1310, pp. 1-35 : 27

“ Tetramorium caespitum sensu lato”

Species morphologically similar to T. caespitum (Linnaeus , 1758) are the dominant Tetramorium ants in temperate parts of Eurasia. Cammaerts et al. (1985) distinguished T. impurum (Foerster , 1850) from T. caespitum in central Europe based on male genitalic characters. It has recently become clear that the T. caespitum / impurum species complex constitutes in fact an assembly of cryptic species, which cannot yet be delimited clearly or assigned valid names (Steiner et al. 2002; Schlick-Steiner et al., 2006). More than one species is included within the current concepts of both T. caespitum and T. impurum . Throughout this paper we use the term “ T. caespitum s.l.” to denote species of the complex.