Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Taxonomic revision of imitating carpenter ants, Camponotus subgenus Myrmopytia (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) of Madagascar, using morphometry and qualitative traits

2017; Pensoft Publishers; Volume: 681; Linguagem: Inglês

10.3897/zookeys.681.13187

1313-2989

Nicole Rasoamanana, Sándor Csősz, Brian L. Fisher,

Animal Behavior and Reproduction

The ant genus Camponotus (Mayr, 1861) is one of the most abundant and species rich ant genera in the Malagasy zoogeographical region. Although this group is commonly encountered, its taxonomy is far from complete. Here, we clarify the taxonomy of the Malagasy-endemic Camponotus subgenus Myrmopytia (Emery, 1920). Species delimitation was based on traditional morphological characters and multivariate morphometric analyses, including exploratory Nest Centroid clustering and confirmatory cross-validated Linear Discriminant Analysis. Four species are recognized: Camponotus imitator (Forel, 1891), Camponotus jodina sp. n., Camponotus karaha sp. n., and Camponotus longicollis sp. n. All four species appear to mimic co-occurring Aphaenogaster species. A diagnosis of the subgenus Myrmopytia, species descriptions, an identification key based on minor and major subcastes of workers, and the known geographical distribution of each species are provided.