Camponotus xerxes Forel 1904
Creators: name: Sharaf, Mostafa R.
name: Abdel-Dayem, Mahmoud S.
name: Mohamed, Amr A.
name: Fisher, Brian L.
name: Aldawood, Abdulrahman S.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Formicidae
Camponotus
Camponotus xerxes

description: <i>Camponotus xerxes</i> Forel, 1904 (Fig. 7 A–C) <i>Camponotus maculatus</i> r. <i>xerxes</i> Forel, 1904 g: 424 (w.q.) Iran. Palearctic. <b> <i>Diagnosis</i>. Worker.</b> A species with a high degree of polymorphism (Collingwood 1985, Collingwood and Agosti 1996, Sharaf <i>et al.</i> 2013). Large workers entirely dark brown to black except for the paler legs; propodeum unicolorous dark with rest of mesosoma; underside of head without setae. <i>Camponotus xerxes</i> is closely related to <i>C. fellah</i> Emery, 1908 but can be distinguished by the absence of erect setae on the underside of head, whereas <i>C. fellah</i> has 1–10 setae (Ionescu-Hirsch, 2009). <b> <i>Material examined</i>.</b> Qatar, Msaid Road, 09.iv.2005, 24 <b>°</b> 59 <b>’</b> N, 51 <b>°</b> 33 <b>’</b> E, (M.S. Abdel-Dayem leg.) 7w, (KSMA). <b> <i>Geographic distribution</i>.</b> A Palearctic species originally described from Iran and widely spread in several countries in the Arabian Peninsula including the KSA (Collingwood 1985), Kuwait, Oman, UAE (Collingwood and Agosti 1996), Qatar (Abdel-Dayem 2007), Syria (Tohmé and Tohmé 2000), North Africa (Sharaf 2006), Turkey (Karaman and Aktaç 2013), and central Asia: Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (Radchenko 1997 a). <b> <i>Ecological and biological notes</i>.</b> The seasonal foraging activity of this species stretches from March to October with a peak in September (Sharaf <i>et al.</i> 2013), where workers frequently forage on the milkweed tree, <i>Calotropis procera</i> (Aiton) W. T. Aiton (Apocynaceae). Collingwood (1985) mentioned that the species start foraging in the early evening in the KSA.
description: Published as part of <i>Sharaf, Mostafa R., Abdel-Dayem, Mahmoud S., Mohamed, Amr A., Fisher, Brian L. &amp; Aldawood, Abdulrahman S., 2020, A Preliminary Synopsis of the Ant Fauna (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of Qatar with Remarks on the Zoogeography, pp. 533-560 in Annales Zoologici 70 (4)</i> on pages 539-540, DOI: 10.3161/00034541anz2020.70.4.005, http://zenodo.org/record/4433537
description: {"references": ["Collingwood, C. A. 1985. Hymenoptera: Fam. Formicidae of Saudi Arabia. Fauna of Saudi Arabia, 7: 230 - 302.", "Collingwood, C. A. and Agosti, D. 1996. Formicidae (Insecta: Hymenoptera) of Saudi Arabia (Part 2). Fauna of Arabia, 15: 300 - 385.", "Sharaf, M. R., Abdeldayem, M. S., Aldhafer, H. &amp; A. S. Aldawood. 2013. The ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of Rawdhat Khorim nature preserve, Saudi Arabia, with description of a new species of the genus Tetramorium Mayr. Zootaxa, 3709 (6): 565 - 580.", "Ionescu-Hirsch, A. 2009. An annotated list of Camponotus of Israel, with a key and descriptions of new species. Israel Journal of Entomology, 39: 57 - 98.", "Abdel-Dayem, M. S. 2007. Plant-Insect Relationship in Prosopis cineraria. P. 69 - 126. In: Abdel Bary EMM, Fahmi GM, Althani NJ, Althani RF and Abdel-Dayem MS (eds) The Ghaf Tree Prosopis cineraria in Qatar. National Council for Culture, Arts and Heritage; Doha, Qatar. 1 st. ed., 165 pp.", "Tohme, G. and H. Tohme. 2000. Redescription de Camponotus oasium Forel, 1890, de C. fellah Emery, 1908, de C. sanctus Forel, 1904 et description de C. palmyrensis n. sp., quatre fourmis du Liban et de la Syrie. Bulletin de la Societe entomologique de France, 105: 387 - 394.", "Sharaf, M. R. 2006. Taxonomic and ecological studies on family Formicidae (Order: Hymenoptera) in Egypt including some protectorates with a study of some insect fauna associated with ant species [unpublished thesis]. Cairo: Ain Shams University, Faculty of Science, Entomology Department, 340 pp.", "Karaman, C. and N. Aktac. 2013. Descriptions of four new species of Camponotus Mayr (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), with a key for the worker caste of the Camponotus of Turkey. Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society, 86: 36 - 56.", "Radchenko, A. G. 1997 a. Review of ants of the subgenera Tanaemyrmex, Colobopsis, Myrmamblis, Myrmosericus, Orthonotomyrmex and Paramyrmamblis of the genus Camponotus (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) in the Asian Palearctic. Zoologicheskii Zhurnal, 76: 806 - 815."]}