Taxonomic revision of imitating carpenter ants, Camponotus subgenus Myrmopytia (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) of Madagascar, using morphometry and qualitative traits.

ABSTRACT: The ant genus Camponotus (Mayr, 1861) is one of the most abundant and species rich ant genera in the Malagasy zoogeographical region. Although this group is commonly encountered, its taxonomy is far from complete. Here, we clarify the taxonomy of the Malagasy-endemic Camponotus subgenus Myrmopytia (Emery, 1920). Species delimitation was based on traditional morphological characters and multivariate morphometric analyses, including exploratory Nest Centroid clustering and confirmatory cross-validated Linear Discriminant Analysis. Four species are recognized: Camponotus imitator (Forel, 1891), Camponotus jodinasp. n., Camponotus karahasp. n., and Camponotus longicollissp. n. All four species appear to mimic co-occurring Aphaenogaster sp

SUBMITTER: Rasoamanana N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5523882 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature