Monomorium nitidiventre Emery

Type location Yemen (Emery, 1893f: 256, worker; Mayr, 1901b: 7, queen; Karavaiev, 1911: 5, male; raised to species Collingwood, 1985: 272); type location wrongly given in Bolton (1995: 265) as Egypt; see below
new junior synonym - judaicum (Menozzi, 1933b: 63, illustrated, worker) from Israel (transferred from subspecies of bicolor) - no images on Antweb (February 2015). .

Bolton (1987: 331) dealing with the bicolor-complex described nitidiventre as a sibling species from around the eastern end of the Mediterranean and did not include it among the Afrotropical species. He does not appear to have any reference to the Santschi (1914b: 73) report of nitidiventre from Naivasha, Kenya, collected by Alluaud & Jeannel, and neither of the papers by Karavaiev (1911) and Viehmeyer (1923), reporting Sudan findings, are among his references.

Emery (1893f) simply noted, specimens from Aden [Yemen], collected by E Simon, - "differs from type (bicolor) by its smaller size, TL 2.6-2.8 mm; by its clear colour, which is more orange where the type is red and by the shiny gaster. Received also from Cairo". Emery (1908h: 677) had an illustrated note at . Karavaiev (1911) had and . Viehmeyer (1923) had . Menozzi's (1933b) illustrated description of judaicum is at

Collingwood (1985: 272) noted "This small bicoloured species ... differs from M. bicolor in the shorter head and appendages, the scape does not reach the occipital border - and by the presence of more numerous long dorsal hairs all over the alitrunk". The hairs on the dorsal alitrunk are clearly visible on the type worker (below). In defining Monomorium jizane, Collingwood & Agosti (1996) separated it as having hairs on the alitrunk whereas M. nitidiventre has not.  The question remains as to whether or not M. jizane is a separate species.

The photomontage of a type collection worker from Yemen is collated from http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=casent0904602

The photomontage is of a specimen from Iran, Fars Province, collector Omid Paknia. It clearly shows the bluish sheen to the gaster and has the smaller size, etc., described for nitidiventre.