Messor meridionalis (André)

; Iran list

Type location Greece (Aphaenogaster barbara var meridionalis, André, 1883b: 355, worker; Ruzsky, 1905b:747, male; raised to species in Bondroit, 1918: 155; in various synonymies but revived as species by Collingwood, 1985: 251; query junior synonym of caducus, Atanassov & Dlussky, 1992: 121, in Bulgarian and not in HNS: Atanassov, N.; Dlussky, G.M. 1992. Fauna of Bulgaria. Hymenoptera, Formicidae. (In Bulgarian). Fauna Bulg. 22, 1-310.). No type images on Antweb (August 2017).

André's (1883b) description is at . Bondroit's (1918) description is at .

Collingwood (1985) reiterated by Collingwood & Agosti (1996: 318) wrote of "this bicoloured species known from Afghanistan (Pisarski, 167) and most of the countries of the Middle East including Iraq and Iran is immediately distingushable from M. semirufus, M. wassmani and other superficially similar species by its relatively large eyes". André, however, had it as entirely black with the alitrunk a dull red; size medium; head more or less shiny, sometimes lightly striate; pronotum transversely ridged, propodeum with small teeth. Distribution: Greece, Albania, Constantinople, Algeria and Tunisia; none of which are Middle Eastern.

Oxford University Museum specimens - possibly wrong ID

Messor meridionalis B Taylor det.

Israel J Kugler

7.viii.1998 Zin Valley

Canyon south of Jede Boger

8

Major - The photomontages are of workers collected in Israel by Joshua Kugler?, 7.viii.1998, and sent to me by Armin Ionescu, Tel Aviv University.