Tapinoma christophi Emery 1925

Seifert, Bernhard, Kaufmann, Bernard & Fraysse, Lorenzo, 2024, A taxonomic revision of the Palaearctic species of the ant genus Tapinoma Mayr 1861 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), Zootaxa 5435 (1), pp. 1-74 : 64

Tapinoma christophi Emery 1925 [type investigation]

The species has been described only on the base of males collected by Christoph at Sarepta (48.512°N, 44.550°E) south of Volgograd. Investigated were two syntype males (one without gaster) labelled “Sarepta Christoph”, “ T. christophi Emery ” [both in Emery’s handwriting], “ANTWEB CASENT 0904025”, “ SYNTYPUS Tapinoma christophi Emery, 1925 ”. Depository MCSN Genova .

Geographic range. Only known from the type locality.

Taxonomic comments. Tapinoma christophi is considered here as a valid species because the undamaged syntype male shows a number of extreme characters which exclude a synonymy with any species in which males are known. It is a combination of rather small size (CS=764 µm), extremely short scape (SL/CS 0.948), short head (CL/CW 0.847) and very shallow clypeal excision (ExCly/CS 1.81%). The genital is also unusual. In ventral view, the caudal ends of the basimeres are semicircular and do not surpass the apices of the subgenital plate. The tips of harpago surpass the tips of the subgenital plate by a distance nearly equal to the depth of the excision of the subgenital plate. Considering the extreme data of head characters and that we have correlation of male and female characters in Tapinoma , T. christophi might be related to T. sinense the workers of which are likewise a combination of rather small size, extremely short scape, short head and very shallow clypeal excision ( Tab. 7). The question if christophi might be a synonym of sinense cannot be answered in reasonably short time and will probably require the study of variation in sufficiently large male material of both taxa.

Biology. Unknown.