Lapolla, J.S.

Description of the male of Acropyga paleartica Menozzi, 1936 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

The male of the single known European Acropyga, A. paleartica Menozzi, 1936, is described. With the discovery of the male of A. paleartica, a combination of worker and male morphological characters allows for the placement of the species within the A. arnoldi species group, which previously only contained a single species, A. arnoldi Santschi, 1926. A number of similarities exist between workers of the two species among those being: a high maxillary palp number (up to 5 segments), a high number of mandibular teeth (6 - 8), and a similarly shaped pronotum. The following similarities exist between males of the two species: high number of mandibular teeth, similarly shaped parameres and penis valves, and similarly shaped 9th sternite (= subgenital plate). A sister taxa grouping of the species is interesting because the mealybugs utilized by both of them are also thought to be sister taxa.

Open access, licensed under CC BY 4.0. © 2006 The Author(s).

Ant taxonomy, mealybugs, Palaearctic, trophobiosis, trophophoresy.