Eburopone wroughtoni (Forel, 1910)

Yamada, Aiki, Nguyen, Dai Dac & Eguchi, Katsuyuki, 2023, First discovery of the ant genus Eburopone Borowiec, 2016 (Hymenoptera, Formicidae, Dorylinae) in the Oriental realm, with description of a new species from Vietnam, ZooKeys 1184, pp. 1-17 : 1

Eburopone wroughtoni (Forel, 1910)

Cerapachys wroughtoni Forel, 1910: 422. Emery 1911: 9; Arnold 1915: 16; Wheeler 1922: 756; Brown 1975: 24, 63; Bolton 1995: 145; Collingwood et al. 2011 (dubious record): 410; Borowiec 2014: 62. Combination in C. (Cerapachys) : Emery 1911: 99. Combination in Eburopone : Borowiec 2016: 129.

Cerapachys wroughtoni var. rhodesiana Forel, 1913: 212. Arnold 1915: 16; Wheeler 1922: 756. Junior synonym of C. wroughtoni : Brown 1975: 24; Bolton 1995: 144.

Cerapachys roberti Forel, 1914: 212. Wheeler 1922: 756; Arnold 1926: 192. Junior synonym of C. wroughtoni : Brown 1975: 24; Bolton 1995: 144.

Type material images examined.

The following type materials of E. wroughtoni and its two junior synonyms were non-physically examined based on the images available from AntWeb (https://www.antweb.org): E. wroughtoni (Forel, 1910), syntype, CASENT0249876 (MHNG); E. wroughtoni var. rhodesiana (Forel, 1913), syntype, CASENT0907055 (MHNG); E. roberti (Forel, 1910), syntypes, CASENT0907054 (MHNG), CASENT0902707 (NHMUK).

Notes.

Although Brown (1975) treated two southern African Eburopone (sub)species, E. roberti and E. w. rhodesiana as junior synonyms of E. wroughtoni , the types of these names show conspicuous morphological differences, especially between E. w. rhodesiana and the others. Eburopone w. rhodesiana is the most morphologically distinct among these by i) lateroventral flange of occipital carina less developed; ii) promesonotal suture inconspicuous (hardly recognizable in the examined image); iii) abdominal segment III distinctly wider than long. Eburopone roberti is different from the syntype of E. wroughtoni at least by having deeper and more prominent promesonotal suture. The differences suggest a possible heterospecificity of these names, especially for E. w. rhodesiana . However, their taxonomic statuses are not addressed in the present study, since it would be appropriate to examine additional colony series; additionally, many undescribed species are known from the Afrotropical and Malagasy regions. Even if multiple species are confused under E. wroughtoni , the independence of E. easoana at the species level is unquestionable.