Lepisiota bahrainensis Sharaf & Wetterer & Mohamed & Georgiadis & Nasser & Aldawood 2024, sp. n.
Creators: name: Sharaf, Mostafa R.
name: Wetterer, James K.
name: Mohamed, AbdulAziz M. A.
name: Georgiadis, Christos
name: Nasser, Mohamed G.
name: Aldawood, Abdulrahman S.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Formicidae
Lepisiota
Lepisiota bahrainensis

description: Lepisiota bahrainensis Sharaf sp. n.
(Figure 10)
Holotype worker. One site: 2 (ANTWEB1041925, KSMA). The new species is known only from the holotype worker.
Measurements
Holotype. EL 0.17, HL 0.60, HW 0.49, PW 0.40, SL 0.94, TL 2.56, WL 1.01. Indices: CI 82, EI 35, SI 191.
Diagnosis
This new species most closely resembles L. gracilicornis (Forel, 1892) in all morphological aspects, but can be distinguished by its petiole, which has an acute dorsal angle that lacks dorsal spines in profile. In contrast, the petiole of gracilicornis has an upright anterior face and a downward-sloping posterior margin, and well-developed petiolar spines. Lepisiota bahrainensis can also be distinguished from the Arabian species by the petiole structure.
Description of worker. Head. Distinctly longer than broad in full-face view, with straight posterior margin and shallowly convex lateral margins; eyes relatively large (EI 35), situated posteriorly behind midlength of head; antennal scape when laid back from its insertion surpassing the posterior margin of head by about a third of its length. Mesosoma. Propodeal spines well developed and sharp. Petiole. In profile the anterior face meets the posterior face at a characteristically acute angle and lacks dorsal spines. Pilosity. Anterior clypeal margin with several pairs of long yellow setae; cephalic surface with scatted appressed pubescence; pronotum with a single pair of setae; rest of mesosoma without setae; gastral tergites with several pairs of setae. Sculpture. Overall smooth and shining. Colour. Uniform black; antennae, legs, and mandibles yellow-brown.
Etymology. Named after the country of the type locality.
Differential diagnosis. This new species cannot be identified with Sharaf et al.’s (2020b) key to Lepisiota species of the Arabian Peninsula. Lepisiota bahrainensis appears to be most similar to L. gracilicornis (Forel, 1892) from Yemen. The two species are uniform black with paler appendages, with exceptionally long scapes (SI 190–200), short and acute propodeal spines, and pronotum with a single pair of setae. However, L. bahrainensis can be easily distinguished by the lack of dorsal petiole spines. In the key to Arabian Lepisiota (Sharaf et al. 2020b, p. 131) L. bahrainensis will key to couplet 12 along with L. gracilicornis, L. nigra, L. omanensis, L. opaciventris and L. spinisquama, and the key is modified here to separate the species. Some variations in the petiole profile might likely be identified with the collection of more individuals.
12 Petiole dorsum rounded, without armature or spines of any description. Lepisiota bahrainensis sp. n.
– Petiole dorsum with well-developed spines .......................................................................... 13
However, L. bahrainensis is readily separated from all Arabian species by the petiole structure.
Geographic range. Endemic to Bahrain.
Ecology and biology. The type locality is an open area of wet, sandy soil with spread construction rubble and adjacent to an urban habitat. The dominant plant cover is the grey mangrove Avicennia marina (Forssk.) Vierh. (Acanthaceae).
The formicine ant genus Lepisiota Santschi, 1926 was treated as a subgenus of Acantholepis Mayr, 1861 for many years before it was considered a junior homonym of the latter genus, and the first available replacement name was Lepisiota Santschi, 1926 (Bolton 1995). The genus is one of the diverse genera of the subfamily Formicinae with 102 valid species and 45 described subspecies (Bolton 2023) that is widely distributed throughout the Afrotropical, Oriental, and Palaearctic regions (Brown 2000), where nests are built directly in the earth, under stones and other objects, and in rotten wood (Sharaf et al. 2020c). Member species can be diagnosed readily by the combination of the following characters in the worker caste: (Bolton 1994): eyes prominent, ocelli frequently present but sometimes reduced; antennae 11-segmented; propodeum with a pair of spines, teeth, or tubercles; petiole with the dorsal margin bispinose, bidentate or emarginated; acidopore well developed.
Lepisiota is considered moderately diverse compared with other formicine genera in the Arabian Peninsula (eg Cataglyphis Foerster, 1850 (28 spp.), Camponotus Mayr, 1861 (25 spp.)) with 21 species and subspecies; all of them are reported from the KSA (Collingwood 1985; Collingwood and Agosti 1996; Sharaf et al. 2023), followed by Oman (11 spp.) (Sharaf et al. 2018 a, 2022), Yemen (10 spp.) (Collingwood and Agosti 1996), the UAE (8 spp.) (Collingwood and Agosti 1996; Collingwood et al. 2011), and finally Qatar (2 spp.) (Sharaf et al. 2020b). Recently, a couple of species were described from the region, L. omanensis Sharaf and Monks, 2016 (Sharaf et al. 2016a), from Oman and the UAE, and L. elbazi Sharaf and Hita Garcia, 2020 from the Dhofar Governorate (Oman) (Sharaf et al. 2020b). The most remarkable contributions on the genus (Sharaf et al. 2020b) reviewed and keyed the fauna in the Arabian Peninsula and presented an assessment of the zoogeographical affinities dividing the fauna into two categories, an Afrotropical category with 11 species (52%) and a Palaearctic category with 10 species (47%).
description: Published as part of Sharaf, Mostafa R., Wetterer, James K., Mohamed, AbdulAziz M. A., Georgiadis, Christos, Nasser, Mohamed G. & Aldawood, Abdulrahman S., 2024, Filling gaps in global myrmecology: ants of the Kingdom of Bahrain (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), pp. 1705-1786 in Journal of Natural History 58 (41 - 44) on pages 1720-1723, DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2024.2388791, http://zenodo.org/record/14241324