Filling gaps in global myrmecology: ants of the Kingdom of Bahrain (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)
Author
Sharaf, Mostafa R.
Department of Plant Protection, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; & Division of Invertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA;
Author
Wetterer, James K.
Wilkes Honors College, Florida Atlantic University, Jupiter, FL, USA;
Author
Mohamed, AbdulAziz M. A.
Agriculture Affairs, Ministry of Municipalities Affairs and Agriculture, Kingdom of Bahrain;
Author
Georgiadis, Christos
Section of Zoology-Marine Biology and Zoological Museum, Department of Biology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece;
Author
Nasser, Mohamed G.
Research Laboratory of Biogeography and Wildlife Parasitology (RLBWP), Department of Entomology, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Abbassia, Egypt
Author
Aldawood, Abdulrahman S.
Department of Plant Protection, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia;
text
Journal of Natural History
2024
2024-09-16
58
41 - 44
1705
1786
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00222933.2024.2388791
journal article
10.1080/00222933.2024.2388791
1464-5262
14241324
Monomorium subopacum
(
Smith, 1858
)
(
Figure 30
)
Myrmica subopaca
Smith, 1858
, p. 127
(w.q.)
Portugal
(
Madeira
I.). Palaearctic.
Diagnosis
Worker.
This species can be recognised by the following characters: colour brown, varying in shade but usually gaster darker than head and mesosoma; eyes with 9–11 ommatidia in longest row; mesosoma in profile with metanotal groove feebly impressed; cephalic dorsum without standing setae behind level of frontal; mesosoma without standing setae; petiole and postpetiole each with a single pair of setae; first gastral tergite with an apical transverse row of setae; cephalic surface reticulate-granulate to shagreenate-punctulate.
Material examined
Four sites: 2; 9; 15; 31.
Geographic range.
Species widely distributed in North Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, and the Afrotropical, Malagasy, and
Oriental
regions (
Bolton 1987
). On the Arabian Peninsula, the species was recorded from the
KSA
(
Collingwood 1985
; Sharaf
et al
.
Figure 30.
Monomorium subopacum
. Worker. (A) Body in profile. (B) Head in full-face view, ANTWEB1041896, AntWeb.org (Michele Esposito). (C) Distribution map.
2023),
Oman
(
Collingwood and Agosti 1996
;
Sharaf
et al
. 2018b
),
Yemen
(
Collingwood and Agosti 1996
), the
UAE
(
Collingwood
et al
. 2011
), and
Qatar
(
Sharaf
et al
. 2020a
).
Ecology and biology.
Little is known about the ecology and biology of the species, but it was reported from a highly degraded site on the Canary Island at
850 m
(
Espadaler 2007
), whereas in
Oman
it was found foraging next to an
Acacia
tree in a dry valley (
Sharaf
et al
. 2018b
). The species was described as halophilic in the Sahara (
Barech
et al
. 2017
), but it was not collected from saline habitats on the Arabian Peninsula.