Cardiocondyla

Cardiocondyla wroughtonii, copyright April Nobile.

Belongs within: Myrmicinae.

Cardiocondyla is a genus of small, mostly soil-dwelling ants found in warmer regions of the Old World.

Characters (from Terayama 1999): Total length of workers around 1.5–3.5 mm. Head rectangular with rounded posterior margin. Mandible triangular, usually with five teeth. Clypeus widely projecting anteriorly, covering base of mandible. Eye relatively well-developed. Antenna with twelve segments (eleven in some species), the apical three segments forming a club. Palpal formula 5,3. Dorsal outline of mesosoma almost straight in profile. Propodeal spine varying from absent to long. Petiole slender in most species, with peduncle and subpetiolar process. Postpetiole depressed in profile, broad in dorsal view, wider than long, wider than petiole. Dorsal areas of head and mesosoma lacking hairs. Legs short; middle and hind legs without tibial spurs.

<==Cardiocondyla Emery 1869 T99 (see below for synonymy)
    |--*C. elegans Emery 1869 T99 [incl. C. elegans var. ulianini Emery 1889 E89]
    |--C. atalanta Forel 1915 H09, TB85 [=C. nuda atalanta TB85]
    |--C. batesii S09
    |--C. bulgarica S09
    |--C. ectopia WW90
    |--C. emeryi T99
    |--C. insutura Zhou 2001 Z01
    |--C. kagutsuchi Terayama 1999 T99
    |--C. mauritanica Forel 1890 FT08
    |--C. monardi Z01
    |--C. nuda (Mayr 1866) [=Leptothorax nuda; incl. C. nuda var. minutior Forel 1899] Z01
    |    |--C. n. nuda TB85
    |    `--C. n. nereis Wheeler 1927 TB85
    |--C. obscurior S09
    |--C. parvinoda Forel 1902 B03
    |--C. tsukuyomi Terayama 1999 T99
    |--C. wroughtonii (Forel 1890) (see below for synonymy) Z01
    `--C. yamauchii Terayama 1999 T99

Cardiocondyla Emery 1869 T99 [incl. Dyclona Santschi 1930 Z01, Emeryia Forel 1890 Z01, Loncyda Santschi 1930 Z01, Prosopidris Wheeler 1935 Z01, Xenometra Emery 1917 Z01]

Cardiocondyla wroughtonii (Forel 1890) [=Emeryia wroughtonii; incl. C. bicolor Donisthorpe 1930, C. wroughtonii var. bimaculata Wheeler 1929, C. emeryi chlorotica Menozzi 1930, C. wroughtonii var. hawaiensis Forel 1899] Z01

*Type species of generic name indicated

REFERENCES

[B03] Bingham, C. T. 1903. The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma. Hymenoptera vol. 2. Ants and Cuckoo-Wasps. Taylor and Francis: London.

[E89] Emery, C. 1889. Intorno ad alcune formiche della fauna palearctica. Annali del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova, Serie 2^a, 7: 439–443.

[FT08] Framenau, V. W., & M. L. Thomas. 2008. Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of Christmas Island (Indian Ocean): identification and distribution. Records of the Western Australian Museum 25 (1): 45–85.

[H09] Heterick, B. E. 2009. A guide to the ants of south-western Australia. Records of the Western Australian Museum Supplement 76: 1–206.

[S09] Seifert, B. 2009. Cryptic species in ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) revisited: we need a change in the alpha-taxonomic approach. Myrmecological News 12: 149–166.

[TB85] Taylor, R. W., & D. R. Brown. 1985. Formicoidea. In: Walton, D. W. (ed.) Zoological Catalogue of Australia vol. 2. Hymenoptera: Formicoidea, Vespoidea and Sphecoidea pp. 1–149. Australian Government Publishing Service: Canberra.

[T99] Terayama, M. 1999. Taxonomic studies of the Japanese Formicidae, part 6. Genus Cardiocondyla Emery. Memoirs of the Myrmecological Society of Japan 1: 99–107.

[WW90] Wheeler, G. C., & J. Wheeler. 1990. Insecta: Hymenoptera Formicidae. In: Dindal, D. L. (ed.) Soil Biology Guide pp. 1277–1294. John Wiley & Sones: New York.

[Z01] Zhou, S. 2001. Ants of Guangxi. Guangxi Normal University Press: Guilin (China).