Strongylognathus afer

Sanetra, M. & Guesten, R., 2001, The socially parasitic ant genus Strongylognathus Mayr in North Africa (Insecta: Hymenoptera: Formicidae)., Zootaxa 20, pp. 1-20 : 2

[[ Strongylognathus afer ]]

S. afer was based on a single female from Dhaya in the Atlas mountains of western Algeria (Emery 1884). Emery (1909) then erected ” Strongylognathus huberi huberi var. foreli “ from Algeria, made available by Emery (1922) as S. huberi ssp. foreli and provisionally raised to species level by Bolton (1976). The worker syntypes were part of collections made by Forel (1890a, 1890b) at three localities in the northeastern part of Algeria (Souk-Ahras, Duvivier) and northern Tunisia ( Béja). Forel also mentions a previous Tunesian finding, which we could not track down in the literature.

After a long lapse of time, S. afer was re-recorded from Algeria by Cagniant (1970) and cited for the first time from Morocco by Cagniant (1997). No findings from Tunisia were ever added to Forel's (1890a, 1890b) locality Béja, although we have discovered specimens in public collections originating from two or three samples taken early last century near Le Kef, variously determined as either S. afer or S. foreli . In the present study, the synonymy of S. foreli with S. afer is established, the species is redescribed, and four new records from Tunisia as well as the first life history information are presented.