Cardiocondyla minutior Forel, 1899

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 : 1737

Cardiocondyla minutior Forel, 1899

( Figure 20 )

Cardiocondyla nuda var. minutior , 1899, p. 120 (w.) Hawaii (Oahu I.). Oceania.

Diagnosis

Worker. Head, mesosoma, petiole, and postpetiole varying from dirty yellow to dark dirty brown, gaster brown to black-brown; eyes small, with distinct microsetae; mesosomal outline in profile nearly straight or feebly convex; metanotal groove weakly impressed or entirely absent; propodeal spines short and acute; petiolar node in dorsal view circular and as long as broad; postpetiole low, with completely flat sternite and without anteroventral bulge.

Material examined

One site: 21.

Geographic range. This pantropical tramp species originally described from Hawaii ( Forel 1899), is native to the Oriental region ( Seifert 2003). It is widespread in all zoogeographical regions but with a huge range of distribution, over the Neotropical, the Polynesian, the Australasian, the Indo-Australasian, and the Oriental regions ( Seifert 2003, 2023; Wetterer 2014), without reports in greenhouses of the temperate zone ( Seifert 2022). This species was recently found in the KSA ( Sharaf et al. 2023).

Ecology and biology. This species has diverse nesting and foraging habits ( Sharaf et al. 2017). In the Socotra Archipelago, workers are frequently encountered in leaf litter and humid organic-rich soil under date palm trees, whereas some samples were found foraging on a mountainside, next to Adiantum capillus-veneris L. ( Pteridaceae ). Some workers were found coexisting with Brachyponera punctatissima (Roger, 1859) in the moist basal leaves of a date palm tree trunk. Nests are frequently built in open wet areas of lawns, grass tussocks, pastures, and paved localities ( Seifert 2003; Deyrup 2017). The species produces both ergatoid and alate males ( Seifert 2003). For more details on habitat and biology see Sharaf et al. (2017).

Figures

Figure 20. Cardiocondyla minutior. Worker. (A) Body in profile. (B) Head in full-face view, ANTWEB1041912, AntWeb.org (Michele Esposito). (C) Distribution map.