A new species of the Aenictus wroughtonii group (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) from South-East China.
A new species of army ant from the Aenictus wroughtonii group is described and illustrated based on the worker caste. Aenictus gutianshanensis Staab, sp. n. is known form a single colony collected in the subtropical mixed evergreen broad-leaved forest of the Gutianshan National Nature Reserve, South-East China. The new species is probably most closely related to A. vieti Jaitrong & Yamane, 2010 known from North Vietnam and Taiwan. It is suggested that the abundant records of A. camposi Wheeler & Chapman, 1925 from East and South-East China should be reevaluated, as they are probably A. gutianshanensis or A. vieti and not A. camposi, which is distributed in Sundaland, the Philippines, and the southernmost part of continental South-East Asia.
Chair of Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology, Institute of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Freiburg, Tennenbacherstraße 4, 79106 Freiburg, Germany.
Michael
M
Staab
Aenictinae; Aenictus gutianshanensis; army ants; species description; taxonomy