Tapinoma erraticum var. madeirense Forel 1895

Seifert, Bernhard, Kaufmann, Bernard & Fraysse, Lorenzo, 2024, A taxonomic revision of the Palaearctic species of the ant genus Tapinoma Mayr 1861 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), Zootaxa 5435 (1), pp. 1-74 : 57

Tapinoma erraticum var. madeirense Forel 1895 [type investigation]

Forel undoubtedly has seen numerous differently labelled samples with workers and gynes from different localities in Madeira mainly collected by Schmitz. This material was later distributed to several museums ( MHN Genève, NHM Basel, MCZ Cambridge, HMNH Budapest). The original description of Forel only refers to workers and mentions Ribeira Brava / Madeira as only type locality. Wetterer et al. (2007) designated the topmost gyne of a sample from Ribeira Brava, stored in MHN Genève, as lectotype. This lectotype fixation in a gyne might be considered as a formal mistake but should not cause damage for name allocation as all 16 workers and 14 gynes investigated by the first author from the MHN Genève collection were consistent and represented a single species. We refer here as unambiguous type material three workers on the same pin labelled “Typus” [red printed label], “ Tapinoma erraticum Ltr.var.madeirense Forel, Ribeira Brava , Madeira ” [handwritten], “ Coll. A. Forel ” [printed], depository MHN Genève . We also recognize as types three gynes (one beheaded) on the same pin, labelled “Typus” [red label], “ Tapinoma erraticum Latr. var.madeirense Forel, Ribeira Brava , Madeira ” [handwritten], “ Coll A.Forel ”, “ LECTOTYPE Tapinoma erraticum var. madeirense Forel desig. Wetterer & Espadaler” [printed label]; depository MHN Genève . Investigated from the MNH Genève collection were furthermore 13 workers and 11 gynes collected by Schmitz in Madeira .