Two new phragmotic ant species from Africa: morphology and next-generation sequencing solve a caste association problem in the genus Carebara Westwood.
Phragmotic or "door head" ants have evolved independently in several ant genera across the world, but in Africa only one case has been documented until now. Carebara elmenteitae (Patrizi) is known from only a single phragmotic major worker collected from sifted leaf-litter near Lake Elmenteita in Kenya, but here the worker castes of two species collected from Kakamega Forest, a small rainforest in Western Kenya, are studied. Phragmotic major workers were previously identified as Carebara elmenteitae and non-phragmotic major and minor workers were assigned to Carebara thoracica (Weber). Using evidence of both morphological and next-generation sequencing analysis, it is shown that phragmotic and non-phragmotic workers of the two different species are actually the same and that neither name - Carebara elmenteitae or Carebara thoracica - correctly applies to them. Instead, this and another closey related species from Ivory Coast are both morphologically different from Carebara elmenteitae, and thus they are described as the new species Carebara phragmotica sp. n. and Carebara lilith sp. n.
Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, 1919-1 Tancha, Onna-son 904-0495, Japan.
Georg
G
Fischer
División de Entomologia, Centro de Ecologia y Biodiversidad, CEBIO. Lima, PERU.
Frank
F
Azorsa
Department of Natural History - Zoology, Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, Friedensplatz 1, 64283 Darmstadt, Germany.
Francisco Hita
FH
Garcia
Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, 1919-1 Tancha, Onna-son 904-0495, Japan.
Alexander S
AS
Mikheyev
Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, 1919-1 Tancha, Onna-son 904-0495, Japan ; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, 830 N University Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48701, USA.
Evan P
EP
Economo
Afrotropics; Carebara lilith; Carebara phragmotica; Formicidae; Hymenoptera; Ivory Coast; Kenya; Phragmosis; RAD-seq; new species descriptions; worker polymorphism