Aphaenogaster mauritanica Dalla Torre, 1893

Schifani, Enrico & Alicata, Antonio, 2023, Nomenclatural changes on some Mediterranean Aphaenogaster Mayr, 1853 taxa (Hymenoptera, Formicidae), Zootaxa 5277 (1), pp. 59-70 : 60-61

Aphaenogaster mauritanica Dalla Torre, 1893

= A. foreli Cagniant, 1996 syn. nov.

= A. gibbosa homonyma Emery, 1921 syn. nov.

Investigated material— Aphaenogaster mauritanica : 1♀, Tlemcen, Tlemcen, Algeria, A. Leveillé legit (syntype specimen, AntWeb CASENT0904173, MSNG) ; 6♀♀, Tebourba , La Manouba, Tunisia, A. Forel legit (label as A. striola subterranoides, CASENT 0904172, MSNG) ; 5♀♀, Téboursouk , Beja, Tunisia, 21.X.2010, A. Alicata legit ( AAPC) ; 11♀♀, Kelibia , Nabeul, Tunisia, 36.838889, 11.115, 17.IV.2016, W. Oueslati legit ( ESPC) (in Schifani et al. 2022) ; 12♀♀, Cap Serrat , Biserta, Tunisia, 07.VI.2017, W. Oueslati legit ( ESPC) (in Schifani et al. 2022) .

In the Maghreb, the pallida group includes a morphospecies with short propodeal spines which was temporarily named “ A. subterraneoides sensu Forel, 1890 ” by Cagniant & Espadaler (1993), without providing any information about its identity. Later, Cagniant (1996) claimed that Forel (1890) had treated subterraneoides as a subspecies of A. pallida and that the name was preoccupied with Emery’s description of A. pallida subterraneoides Emery, 1881 from Greece ( Emery, 1881). On this basis, he established the name A. foreli to replace the taxon described by Forel (1890). However, Forel (1890) had used the spelling subterranoides (and not “ subterraneoides ”) as a smaller and more brownish variety of Aphaenogaster striola (Roger, 1859) , a junior synonym of the European species A. gibbosa (Latreille, 1798) ( Emery 1895) . Moreover, Cagniant (1996) did not take into account that Emery (1921) had already introduced the name A. gibbosa var. homonyma with the explicit intent of replacing the variety subterranoides described by Forel (1890) (also there mentioning it as subterraneoides ). In the description, Emery (1921) did not explain how the variety homonyma differs from other members of the gibbosa group. An examination of the six worker specimens in the collection of Forel labeled “ A. striola subterranoides ” immediately confirmed that they belong to the gibbosa group, which is very distinct from the pallida group that includes the Greek taxon described by Emery ( Emery 1881; Schifani et al. 2022). Recently, on AntCat it was proposed to consider A. foreli as a junior synonym of A. gibbosa homonyma , and since Cagniant (1996) had treated A. foreli as a species-rank taxon, to treat it as a full species, A. homonyma ( Bolton 2022) —even though Cagniant (1996) clearly referred to a pallida group morphospecies. Based on comparisons between types, the morphology of the workers from the collection of Forel is fully congruent with the only other gibbosa group taxon in the Eastern Maghreb, A. mauritanica Dalla Torre, 1893 , and no characters to separate the two have ever been described. They are easily distinguishable from the European A. gibbosa and from the Moroccan A. theryi Santschi, 1923 , but appear indistinguishable from each other as recognized in the only existing revision of the group ( Salata & Borowiec 2018a). Accordingly, we establish A. mauritanica as the senior synonym of both A. foreli and A. gibbosa homonyma . The Maghrebian pallida group morphospecies with short spines also needs a formal name: according to available morphological and phylogenetic evidence, it should be conspecific with A. dulcineae Emery, 1924 ( Schifani et al. 2022; Fig. 1 ). The southernmost range of A. dulcineae was hitherto considered to end in southern Iberia (Tarifa), while surprisingly no comparison was made until recently with the population inhabiting the Maghreb ( Schifani et al. 2022; Fig. 1 ).

Figures

FIGURE 1. Workers of Aphaenogaster dulcineae. A,B: specimen from Tunisia (sequenced as A. foreli by Schifani et al. 2022). C,D: Syntype specimen from Spain (Aphaenogaster pallida dulcineae, CASENT0913113, photo from Zach Lieberman available on www.antweb.org).