Cardiocondyla shuckardi sculptinodis Santschi 1913 Revived Combination

Cardiocondyla shuckardi Forel st. sculptinodis Santschi 1913: 305 . Holotype gyne: Madagascar [NHMB, antweb.org image of specimen CASENT0101127] (examined). Subspecies of C. shuckardi: Wheeler 1922: 1021 . Subspecies of C. nuda: Emery 1922: 126 .

The type gyne has no head but the conserved mesosoma and waist characters clearly exclude that it from the C. nuda group. Comparisons were made with 114 gynes of C. nuda, C. mauritanica, C. atalanta, C. kagutsuchi, and C. itsukii and NUMOBAT files of these specimens hosted in SMN Görlitz. The C. sculptinodis type differs from this C. nuda group material by a wide petiole with a node appearing globular in dorsal view and a ratio PEW/PPW of 0.68. This ratio is 0.576 ± 0.027 [0.511, 0.654] in 114 measured gynes of the C. nuda group—in other words, the C. sculptinodis type has a probability of p<0.00005 of belonging to this cluster. Furthermore, the propodeum of the C. sculptinodis type shows in lateral view spines reduced to a blunt angle of 125°. The spines of the C. nuda group gynes are developed as more or less sharp dents the upper and lower margins of which form an angle of 75 – 95°. Thirdly, the color of the C. sculptinodis type is uniformly dark or blackish brown—this has never been observed in the two species of the C. nuda group possibly occurring in Madagascar ( C. mauritanica and C. itsukii). On the other hand, there is no single character of the C. sculptinodis type which contradicts an allocation to the C. shuckardi group. The character combination is close to C. shuckardi Forel 1891 itself, the type of which is also from Madagascar . The C. shuckardi group contains a minimum of four and a maximum of six species (unpub. data). It is not clear if there is more than one species of this group on Madagascar, so synonymization at this point would be premature.