Camponotus staryi, Seifert, 2019

Seifert, Bernhard, 2019, A taxonomic revision of the members of the Camponotus lateralis species group (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from Europe, Asia Minor and Caucasia, Soil Organisms 91 (1), pp. 7-32 : 15

Camponotus staryi Pisarski 1971

This taxon has been described from Northern Iraq. The holotype, a minor worker, is depicted in AntWeb. org under CASENT 0917233 and is labeled ‘ Iraq Sari Rash nr Salahuddin Kurdistan 10.7.1968 leg. Stary 322’, ‘Holotyp’, ‘ Camponotus staryi sp. n. det B. Pisarski’ and ‘ANTWEB CASENT 0917223’. The type locality is situated at 36.409°N, 44.317°E, 980 m and thus 1250 km east of the type locality of Camponotus anatolicus Karaman & Aktac 2013 in W Anatolia. The holotype of C. staryi shows a high similarity to minor workers from the holotype nest of Camponotus anatolicus which I could examine. Considering the images in AntWeb. org as well as Pisarski’s drawing of the holotype in the original description, the interspecific differences verbally described by Karaman & Aktac (2013) appear most doubtful. The only morphological argument for a possible heterospecificity is the wider petiole in the C. staryi holotype: PeW/ CS 1.25 was calculated from the AntWeb.org images as 0.418 whereas it is 0.304 –0.381 in 9 specimens of C. anatolicus ( Tab. 2). I refrain here from a synonymization of the two taxa because of the very poor data basis and the rather high geographic distance of the type localities.