Cardiocondyla sahlbergi (Forel)

Iran list Type location Israel (Cardiocondyla elegans Em. v sahlbergi n. v., Forel, 1913d: 429, worker (not queen); Finzi, 1936: 166, illustrated, worker and queen; listed as a species by Agosti & Collingwood, 1987a: 56) Jourdain, Palestine, U Sahlberg - see below.

Forel's (1913d) description is at . Finzi's (1936) description is at . Seifert's (2003) modern description is at .

Egypt records - Finzi (1936: 166); Mohamed et al (2001) gave a drawing of what they determined as wroughtonii; from the drawing, however, it seems that the specimens were probably sahlbergi, for instance the petiole of wroughtonii has a smoothly rounded node whereas the Mohamed drawing shows a narrow node typical of sahlbergi, the propodeum shows the same convexity as sahlbergi. In their key, Mohamed et al, wrote of the head, alitrunk and appendages being yellow and the gaster brown - as Finzi noted. Mostafa Sharaf has checked the specimen shown below

Seifert (2003: 235) did not sight any specimens from Egypt and noted "The very poor collecting activity in Egypt and Libya does not allow to conclude an isolated position of the sample from Tunisia (10° E, 33° N); Seifert did not refer to Agosti & Collingwood (1987a) as raising it to species.

The photomontage of the type worker is collated from http://www.antweb.org/specimen.do?name=casent0908341.

This is an enigma, as Forel (1913d) had the symbol for queen but gave the TL as 2 mm. The size of the worker is about right and so, it seems whata Forel briefly described was the worker and not the queen.

The photomontage is of a worker from Egypt, taken by Mostafa Sharaf.

Queen as illustrated by Seifert (2003).

Oxford University Museum specimens

Cardiocondyla sahlbergi B Taylor det. Queen

Iran M Safariyan 18

4.ii.2014 35.14755°N 47.78202°E

Sarab Lake 1900 m pitfall trap; edge of grassland

1

The photomonatge is of a queen from Iran - Sarab Lake, M Safariyan (18)