Cardiocondyla nigra (Forel)

Type location Tunisia (Cardiocondyla batesii var nigra, Forel, 1905b: 174, worker & queen; Santschi, 1907: 234, male, ergatoid male & gynandromorph; raised to species Schembri & Collingwood, 1981: 428, illustrated) Kairouan, F Santschi - see below.

Forel's (1905b) description reads - (my translation) - "new variety, worker & queen - very similar to elegans r. santschii, with the same colour and size but the form of the [pedicel] nodes is that of batesii, expecially of the queen; Kairouan".
Schmebri & Collingwood's (1981) redefinition, based on Malta specimens, is at . Fizni's (1936) description of torretassoi (with drawing of nigra ?) is at . Seifert's (2003) description is at . He does not mention Schembri & Collingwood, nor Agosti & Collingwood (1987a) where it is listed as a species.

Egypt records - Seifert (2003) listed examining specimens from Wadi Hoff, worker, 08.iii.1933 - labelled C. elegans var torretassoi, collected by C Koch, MCZ cotype 28812, MCZ Cambridge [K Koch collections covered in Finzi, 1936]; and Sinai, Bir Gafgafa, 3 km E, worker, 26.iv.1968.

The photomontage of the holotype worker is collated from http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=casent0908336.

Photomontage derived from the MCZ website