This was a much darker and slightly larger Myrmicinae than the more yellowish species posted before. cc 4-4.5 mm. The habitat was short grass grown on chalk. North-East Hungary, Bukk mountains.

Hallo xespok!
It is Tetramorium sp. in all probability. The specific identification of the species is impossible.
Grüße Boro

Boro hat geschrieben:Hallo xespok!
It is Tetramorium sp. in all probability. The specific identification of the species is impossible.
Grüße Boro

I think this is not T. caespitum, the common species around houses. If so it must be one of the two other T. species occuring in Hungary.

Hallo xespok!
In B. Seifert, Die Ameisen Mittel- u. Nordeuropas (2007), we can read, that in Central-Europa there are at least 11 species of Tetramorium, but only 6 species are taxonomical identified.
Beste Grüße v. Boro

P.S.:
I think this 6 species are as follows:
T. caespitum (LINNAEUS 1785)
T. ferrox RUZSKY 1903
T. impurum (FÖRSTER 1850)
T. moravicum KRATOCHVIL 1941
T. hungaricum RÖSZLER 1935
T. kutteri SANTSCHI 1927

Thx for the hint. I thought the Hungarian ant fauna was more or less completely known, but this may not be the case.

Sorry to say that - but the taxonomy of Tetramorium is a kind of messy.
I think nobody really knows how many species there are in this clade.

Just to show what I mean, here I present an overview of the names Boro mentions:

T. caespitum L.- the typical species, most people call every central european ant of this genus "T. caespitum"

T. impurum FÖRSTER - I really tried hard (I had to for my work) to differentiate between T. caespitum and this species, using Seifert's key. I even reverted to raster electron microscopy. Eventually I gave up ...
If anybody has a specimen that clearly shows all of the T. impurum characteristics - please show me!
Another issue: I really doubt that FÖRSTER had optics as good as the one available today to use for his description back in 1850!
T. ferox - Seams to be valid. Most of the literature mentions that species with at least similar characteristics.

T. moravicum KRATOCHVIL- According to the "Hymenoptera name server" database this is a synonym of T. forte KUTTER. Another one of those species described solely by sifting through a few museum specimens.

T. hungaricum - has been described by RÖSZLER as "T. caespitum ssp. hungaricum" as you can see on the Hymenoptera name server. Not sure how and with what reason this one got promoted to a distinct species from T. ceaspitum.

T. kutteri SANTSCHI- What is this supposed to be? Is this the same as "T. semilaeve ssp. kutteri SANTSCHI? Who knows for sure ...


And in general, don't take any author who throws species names at you too seriously. Remember: Anybody can describe a "new species" just by picking up some specimens that look "different" and writing a description. Not the author has to prove that he really found a new species, but the "scientific community" (that means: you!) can try to disprove it, which can be very difficult and tedious work.

And of course there are several competing definitions what a "species" is: biospecies, morphospecies, phylogenetic species etc.
Many museum zoologists describe species solely by morphological traits (morphospecies). Those names in general have little scientific value, if it is not shown additionally that those species really have different ecology and are in competition aggainst each other and do not interbreed!

So, if you want my advice: Just name your ants "Tetramorium cf. caespitum".

Thx, I did not realize that these taxa were so much overdescribed. I'll keep it as T. cf. caespitum.