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SUBFAMILY FORMICINAE - Genus Lepisiota - Lepisiota nigra (Dalla Torre)

Lepisiota nigra (Dalla Torre)

return to key {link to the Hymenoptera Name Server} Type location Italy (Acantholepis frauenfeldi var nigra Em., Dalla Torre, 1893: 171, all forms; species status Zimmermann, 1935: 45; confirmed by Agosti & Collingwood, 1987a: 57) all forms described.


Lepisiota nigra petioleDalla Torre's (1893) paper simply provides a list of names; this is on {original description}. The name nigra is ascribed to Emery (1878b: 46; 1881b: 527; and it appears by letter to Dalla Torre - this is on {original description}. Karavaiev (1912a: 15) referred to it in his description of Lepisiota nigrescens, this is on {original description}, his drawing of the petiole shape has it as wider than that of nigrescens.


{Lepisiota nigra sexual stages}From Emery (1878b) it seems clear that nigra was assigned to black specimens from desert areas with workers TL 2.8-3.0 mm, possibly alternatively identifable as bipartita, which (in Bolton, 1995: 326) remains as a subspecies of Lepisiota frauenfeldi. In his key, Finzi (1936: 188) noted - petiole scale large (bipartita type); maximum width at about about double the depth of the incision of the scale. Tarbinsky (1976: 129) considered nigra and frauenfeldi kassanasi providing illustrations of the nigra sexual stages; the text, however, is in Russian.

Emery (1881b: 572) reported it from Yemen, Aden. Collingwood & Agosti (1996: 368) had records from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates.

Egypt records - Finzi (1936: 186) citing Menozzi (1929e: 128), which was one worker from Sinai, at Wadi Tarfa, collected by F S Bodenheimer; Emery record in Mohamed et al (2001).


{Lepisiota nigra}The photomontage of the (presumably) type worker is collated from http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=casent0905148

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