Myrmica scabrinodis Nylander 1846

Schifani, Enrico, Csősz, SÁndor, Viviano, Roberto & Alicata, Antonio, 2021, Ant diversity on the largest Mediterranean islands: on the presence or absence of 28 species in Sicily (Hymenoptera, Formicidae), Natural History Sciences 8 (1), pp. 55-70 : 64

12. Myrmica scabrinodis Nylander 1846

The taxonomy of the M. scabrinodis group in Europe was very confused for a long time (Seifert, 1988; 2018; Radchenko & Elmes, 2010). While phylogenetic reconstructions are often still problematic (Ebsen et al., 2019; Blatrix et al., 2020), morphological species-delimitation appears solidly established in most cases (Seifert, 2018). Myrmica scabrinodis is widespread in Europe (Seifert, 2018), and was recorded from Mount Etna in Sicily (Kutter, 1927). Later, Bernard (1967) reported from the same locality M. sabuleti Meinert 1861 , whose presence on the Etna in the same locality the presence of the European M. sabuleti was recorded by Bernard (1967) and was confirmed by Seifert (2018). We revised material of the M. scabrinodis group from most important Sicilian mountains (Etna, Madonie, Nebrodi) and lowland streams (e.g. Cavagrande del Cassibile), and always detected the presence of M. sabuleti only (first recorded from lowland sites by Baroni Urbani, 1964a). It is also worth noting that the species status of M. tulinae Elmes et al. 2002 , whose workers are considered undistinguishable from M. sabuleti (Radchenko & Elmes, 2010), is currently considered doubtful (Seifert 2018): if demonstrated to be a good species, our identification of samples as M. sabuleti would become doubtful.