Lasius distinguendus

AntWiki: The Ants --- Online
Lasius distinguendus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Formicidae
Subfamily: Formicinae
Tribe: Lasiini
Genus: Lasius
Section: flavus clade
Species group: umbratus
Species: L. distinguendus
Binomial name
Lasius distinguendus
(Emery, 1916)

Lasius distinguendus casent0172737 profile 1.jpg

Lasius distinguendus casent0172737 dorsal 1.jpg

Specimen labels

Synonyms

This species exhibits temporary social parasitism. Queens found new colonies by infiltrating established nests of Lasius paralienus and Lasius platythorax, killing the queen and using host workers to care for her initial brood.

At a Glance • Temporary parasite  

Identification

Collingwood (1979) - Most easily recognised in the queen caste. It is like a larger, paler Lasius mixtus but has more abundant genal hairs and a high broadly emarginate scale. The worker has occasional tibial hairs and longer body hairs than L. mixtus and would be more easily confused with Lasius umbratus.

Keys including this Species

Distribution

Mainly found in South and Central Europe. According to B. Pisarski (priv. commun.) it occurs in North Germany and probably also in Poland (Collingwood 1979).

Latitudinal Distribution Pattern

Latitudinal Range: 50.769° to 38.59851°.

 
North
Temperate
North
Subtropical
Tropical South
Subtropical
South
Temperate

Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists

Palaearctic Region: Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Iberian Peninsula, Italy (type locality), Mongolia, Montenegro, Poland, North Macedonia, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Türkiye.

Distribution based on AntMaps

AntMapLegend.png

Distribution based on AntWeb specimens

Check data from AntWeb

Countries Occupied

Number of countries occupied by this species based on AntWiki Regional Taxon Lists. In general, fewer countries occupied indicates a narrower range, while more countries indicates a more widespread species.
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Estimated Abundance

Relative abundance based on number of AntMaps records per species (this species within the purple bar). Fewer records (to the left) indicates a less abundant/encountered species while more records (to the right) indicates more abundant/encountered species.
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Biology

Flight Period

X X X
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Source: antkeeping.info.

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Association with Other Organisms

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Diptera

  • This species is a host for the Microdon fly Microdon devius (a predator) in Latium, central Italy (Scarparo et al., 2020).

Fungi

  • This species is a host for the fungus Aegeritella tuberculata (a pathogen) (Espadaler & Santamaria, 2012).

The reported host/parasite relationship between Lasius distinguendus and Lasius alienus as reported by Janda et al. (2004) should be investigated in the field as Seifert (2018) could not corroborated this relationship (de la Mora et al., 2021).

Castes

Queen

Images from AntWeb

Lasius distinguendus casent0172738 head 1.jpgLasius distinguendus casent0172738 profile 1.jpgLasius distinguendus casent0172738 profile 2.jpgLasius distinguendus casent0172738 dorsal 1.jpgLasius distinguendus casent0172738 label 1.jpg
Queen (alate/dealate). Specimen code casent0172738. Photographer April Nobile, uploaded by California Academy of Sciences. Owned by CAS, San Francisco, CA, USA.

Nomenclature

The following information is derived from Barry Bolton's Online Catalogue of the Ants of the World.

  • distinguendus. Formicina umbrata subsp. distinguenda Emery, 1916a: 64, figs. VI,4; VII,6 (w.q.) ITALY. Karavaiev, 1936: 214 (m.). [Also described as new, but bicornis susbp. distinguenda, by Emery, 1916b: 242.] Combination in Lasius: Müller, 1923: 13; in L. (Chthonolasius): Emery, 1925b: 234. Raised to species: Bondroit, 1918: 32. Subspecies of umbratus: Emery, 1922b: 13; Stärcke, 1937: 47. Status as species: Müller, 1923: 130. Junior synonym of umbratus: Wilson, 1955a: 151. Revived from synonymy as subspecies of umbratus: Pisarski, 1975: 39. Revived status as species: Collingwood, 1978: 72. See also: Collingwood, 1979: 102; Agosti & Collingwood, 1987a: 58; Seifert, 1988: 149; Seifert, 1990: 10. Senior synonym of hybrida: Stärcke, 1937: 57; Seifert, 1988: 149; of nuda and material of the unavailable name cereomicans referred here: Seifert, 1990: 10.
  • nuda. Formicina umbrata var. nuda Bondroit, 1917a: 176, fig. 2 (q.) no locality given. Junior synonym of affinis: Emery, 1925b: 234; of umbratus: Stärcke, 1937: 57; Agosti & Collingwood, 1987a: 58; of distinguendus: Seifert, 1990: 10.
  • hybrida. Formicina distinguenda var. hybrida Bondroit, 1918: 33 (w.q.) ITALY. [First available use of Formicina umbrata subsp. distinguenda var. hybrida Emery, 1916a: 66; unavailable name.] Combination in Lasius (Chthonolasius): Emery, 1925b: 234. Subspecies of umbratus: Emery, 1922b: 13. Junior synonym of distinguendus: Stärcke, 1937: 57. Revived from synonymy and raised to species: Arnol'di & Dlussky, 1978: 555 (in key). Junior synonym of distinguendus: Seifert, 1988: 149.

Unless otherwise noted the text for the remainder of this section is reported from the publication that includes the original description.

Description

Worker

Borowiec and Salata (2022) - Lasius balcanicus and Lasius distinguendus differ only in gyne caste, for differences see comparative characters. Monomorphic, small to moderately large, HL 1.032- 1.175, HW 1.008-1.151, ML 1.17-1.37. Scape moderately elongate, SL 0.825-0.992. Color. Whole body including appendages pale yellow. Structure and setation. Head slightly longer than wide, sides rounded, occipital margin straight to slightly concave. Eyes very small, head length 7.1-8.7 times the maximum diameter of eye. Whole frontal head covered with moderately long, appressed and moderately dense pubescence, and sparse, short to moderately long, erected setae, surface well visible, microsculptured but shiny. Occipital part of head with 24-28 long erected setae. Gena and underside of head with numerous erected setae. Mesosomal dorsum with several long erected setae, length of the longest seta 0.159. Below propodeal spiracle 5-8 short erected setae. Antennal scapi moderately flattened, anterior surface with short appressed and slightly decumbent pubescence and in apical 2/3 length with suberect hair and 0-3 short erected setae, posterior surface with 0-6 erected setae. Hind tibiae moderately broad and flattened, with (0)2-6 (8) suberect to erected setae on external surface. Ventral surface of femora and tibiae with several erected setae, anterior surface of fore coxa with few long erected setae. Pubescence on the whole body and appendages moderately dense and whitish. Pubescence of clypeus sparse, not covering clypeus surface. Surface of gastral tergites distinctly sculptured but shiny, first gastral tergite on the whole surface with dense, moderately long erected setae. Petiolar scale slightly broadened in the middle, slightly narrowed anterad, upper margin with shallow median emargination. Propodeum in lateral view high, slightly conical or with obtuse top, metanotal groove deep.

References

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