Camponotus oasium Forel, 1890

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 : 539

Camponotus oasium Forel, 1890

( Fig. 6 A–C)

Camponotus rubripes r. oasium Forel, 1890 : lxv (s.w.q.) Algeria. Palearctic.

Diagnosis. Worker. Underside of head with one or two setae; mesosomal dorsum with about ten erect setae; dorsum of petiole steeply rounded; first gaster tergite with basal two thirds testaceous; large workers with head, mesosoma, and dorsum dark brown to black, head brown, lower half of mesosoma usually yellow and distinctly paler than mesosomal dorsum, gaster and appendages yellow; small workers uniform yellow with end of gaster brown.

Material examined. Qatar, Doha, Al-Dohuil , 14.iii.2005, 25°22’N, 51°29’E, (M.S. Abdel-Dayem leg.), 4w ( KSMA) .

Geographic distribution. A species described from Algeria and distributed in the west Africa ( Benin, Mali, Niger, Senegal), Horn of Africa ( Ethiopia), and North Africa [ Algeria, Egypt ( Sharaf 2006)]; eastwardly from Arabian Peninsula to Afghanistan and north to Turkey ( Karaman and Aktaç 2013) and Central Asia [ Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan ( Radchenko 1997a)]. In the Arabian Peninsula, it is recorded from the UAE ( Collingwood et al. 2011), KSA, Oman ( Collingwood 1985). It is recorded for the first time from Qatar.

Ecological and biological notes. This species was collected from a tamarisk tree, Tamarix nilotica (Ehrenb.) Bunge , in the Nile Delta ( Egypt) and was observed attending the membracids ( Sharaf 2006).

Figures

Figure 6. Camponotus oasium, large worker, A, body in profile B, body in dorsal view C, head in full-face view, CASENT0249629 (Shannon Hartman), www.AntWeb.org.