Messor wasmanni Krausse 1910

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

10. Messor wasmanni Krausse 1910

The same argumentation described for M. minor is also valid for M. wasmanni . Although different from M. bouvieri in terms of chaetotaxy or the degree of the workers’ polymorphism (much more marked in M. wasmanni ), we speculate that M. bouvieri specimens with a reddish mesosoma could be misidentified for M. wasmanni . In particular, M. wasmanni appears to be a mostly Eastern- Mediterranean species and it was described from its westernmost distribution limit in Sardinia (Krausse, 1910). A neotype should be fixed to preserve its name (Steiner et al., 2011). Kutter (1927) recorded M. wasmanni from Eurialo, near Syracuse, and from the Aeolian islands (where the presence of M. bouvieri , M. capitatus , and M. ibericus only was confirmed, see Schär et al. 2020). In the Aeolian Islands M. wasmanni was recently incorrectly listed as M. meridionalis (André) by Turrisi et al. (2020), who also considered M. structor to be present. Apparently , both names were listed due to a misunderstanding of the relevant literature.