ANTS OFSARDINIA: AN UPDATED CHECKLIST BASED ON NEWFAUNISTIC, MORPHOLOGICAL AND BIOGEOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Abstract

Sardinia is the second largest islandin the Mediterranean region, receiving significant attention due to its interesting fauna and flora. The last checklist of Sardinian ants was published more than a decade ago, and,since then,it got outdated by numerous taxonomic and faunistic novelties. As a result of recentcollecting efforts across theisland,we presentthe first Sardinian records of Messor ibericus Santschi, 1931, Solenopsis lusitanica Emery, 1915(new to Italy), Temnothorax aveli Bondroit, 1918 and Tetramorium atratulum (Schenck, 1852), while proposing to consider Solenopsis fugax (Latreille, 1798)and Temnothorax affinis (Mayr, 1855) as absent. We report for the first time a parasite-host association between Tetramorium atratulum and Tetramoriumsemilaeve André, 1883, and the conspicuous presence of ergatogynes within a Solenopsiscolony (S. lusitanica).Morphological insights on the little-known S. lusitanica and S. orbula Emery, 1875 are also discussed.We combined the new findings and previous literature data intoan updatedchecklist of 77 taxaand discuss afirst biogeographic analysis of the Sardinian antsaided bychorotypes.Eurasian, European, Euro-Mediterraneanand West-Mediterranean taxa are the numerically prevalent groups, while the overall number of speciesis significantly lower than in the other large Mediterranean islands. Considerableknowledge gapsstill remainand some species are known to require additionaltaxonomic investigation