Ponera sinensis Wheeler, 1928

Pierce, Mac P., Leong, Chi-Man & Guenard, Benoit, 2019, A new species and new record of the cryptobiotic ant genus Ponera Latreille, 1804 (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) from Hong Kong, ZooKeys 867, pp. 9-21 : 9

Ponera sinensis Wheeler, 1928

Ponera sinensis Wheeler, 1928c: 6 (w.) CHINA (Hong Kong). Indomalaya.

Geographic range.

Guangxi province, Yunnan province, Taiwan, Hong Kong S.A.R.

Diagnosis.

See Wheeler (1928), Wilson (1957), Taylor (1967), and Leong et al. (2019).

Comments.

To the best of our knowledge, the only confirmed specimen of P. sinensis from Hong Kong is the holotype, collected by Professor F. Silvestri from an unknown location, and described by Wheeler (1928). Despite numerous faunal studies in Hong Kong over recent years, no further specimens of P. sinensis have been identified. On the contrary, the vast majority of Ponera specimens collected from Hong Kong represent the newly recorded P. guangxiensis . Whether this represents an underlying ecological change or simply an artefact of sampling remains unclear, and future sampling in Hong Kong may yield new specimens of P. sinensis .