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
18D05DD2-4B64-4A87-8389-582D5714411C
Tetramorium caldarium
(
Roger, 1857
)
(
Figure 37
)
Tetrogmus caldarius
Roger, 1857
, p. 12
(w.q.)
Poland
. Palaearctic.
Diagnosis
Worker.
The species most closely resembles
T. simillimum
but can be distinguished by the following characters: uniform yellow-brown, gaster usually darker than head, and mesosoma; frontal carinae extend posteriorly to level of midlength of eyes behind which they become feeble or broken, or gradually fade out at posterior margin of head; cephalic surface with shallow ground sculpture; head behind the eyes does not broaden.
Material examined
One site: 13.
Figure 37.
Tetramorium caldarium
. Worker. (A) Body in profile. (B) Head in full-face view, ANTWEB1041899, AntWeb.org (Michele Esposito). (C) Distribution map.
Geographic range.
Tetramorium caldarium
is an Afrotropical native that has spread to all zoogeographical realms (
Bolton 1980
;
Wetterer and Hita Garcia 2015
). On the Arabian Peninsula it has been collected from the
KSA
(
Collingwood 1985
),
Oman
,
Yemen
(
Collingwood and Agosti 1996
;
Sharaf
et al
. 2018a
) and the
UAE
(
Wetterer and Hita Garcia 2015
).
Ecology and biology.
This species is generally found in open disturbed areas (
Collingwood 1979
;
Bolton
1980
;
Wetterer 2015
), usually near buildings, in or near paved areas, in hollow twigs (
Deyrup 2017
) and heat houses (
Deyrup
et al
. 2000
;
Espadaler 2007
), in the leaf litter of irrigated public parks (
Sharaf
et al
. 2018
) and in regions with high anthropogenic activity (
Bharti and Kumar 2012
). Nests are built directly in the earth under rocks where the soil is dry and loose and it was found in an area cultivated with rose (
Sharaf
et al
. 2018b
) and mango (
Mangifera indica
) (
Anacardiaceae
) (
Taylor
et al
. 2018
). Diet includes dead insects and cookie crumbs (
Deyrup 2017
).