Nylanderia sp. 2

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 : 65

14. Nylanderia sp. 2 sensu Schifani & Alicata (2018)

This morphospecies was mentioned by Schifani & Alicata (2018) and later reported by Schifani (2019) too. Upon careful revision of a larger number of workers and males, we concluded that Nylanderia sp. 2 is actually N. jaegerskioeldi (Mayr 1904) , a hypothesis that we had initially abandoned due to some observations on male morphology (J. LaPolla, pers. comm.). This conclusion was supported by J. LaPolla who directly examined some of our specimens (J. LaPolla, pers. comm.). Therefore, we consider two introduced Nylanderia species to be present in Sicily: N. jaegerskioeldi , which is widespread on the island and spreading over other S European countries (Schifani, 2019), and Nylanderia sp. 1 , which share some features of N. vaga (Forel 1901) (J. LaPolla, pers. comm.) but whose identity is still to be ascertained (Schifani & Alicata, 2018).