Monomorium exiguum Forel, 1894

Sharaf, Mostafa R., Wetterer, James K., Mohamed, AbdulAziz M. A., Georgiadis, Christos, Nasser, Mohamed G. & Aldawood, Abdulrahman S., 2024, Filling gaps in global myrmecology: ants of the Kingdom of Bahrain (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), Journal of Natural History 58 (41 - 44), pp. 1705-1786 : 1749

Monomorium exiguum Forel, 1894

( Figure 28 )

Monomorium exiguum , 1894, p. 85 (w.) Ethiopia. Afrotropic.

Diagnosis

Worker. This species can be diagnosed by the following characters: colour ranges from uniform yellow to uniform dark brown, frequently with two brown patches or darker bands apically on first gastral tergite; antennae 11-segmented; scapes fail to reach posterior margin of head; eyes in profile with an outer ring of ommatidia enclosing one or two longitudinal rows of 2–4 ommatidia; eyes located in front of midlength of head sides in full-face view; metanotal groove impressed; propodeal dorsum and declivity meeting in a rounded convexity; body smooth and shining, except for metanotal cross-ribs on sides of metanotal groove; body surfaces with standing setae, pronotum with a single pair, promesonotum usually with 4–5 pairs; propodeum without hairs or with 1–2 pairs of hairs.

Material examined

Four sites: 10; 12; 13; 21.

Geographic range. Monomorium exiguum is widely distributed in the Afrotropical ( Bolton 1987) and Palaearctic ( Collingwood and Agosti 1996) regions, with a broad geographic distribution in the Arabian Peninsula ( Sharaf et al. 2018a). Recently, it was collected from Greece and Crete ( Borowiec et al. 2023).

Ecology and biology. This species is one of the most abundant of the Monomorium species in the Arabian Peninsula and the most common of members of the M. monomorium group ( Sharaf et al. 2018a) due to its remarkable flexibility in ecological requirements, where it is frequently encountered in leaf litter and soil samples in both urban and wild habitats.

Figures

Figure 28. Monomorium exiguum. Worker. (A) Body in profile. (B) Head in full-face view, ANTWEB1041894, AntWeb.org (Michele Esposito). (C) Distribution map.