Cataglyphis bicolor (Fabricius)

Bolton (1995) gave the following -
Type location North Africa (Formica bicolor, Fabricius, 1793: 351, male); subspecies adustus (Santschi, 1929b: 43, all forms) and oasium (Cataglyphis bicolor st nodus var oasium, Santschi, 1929b: 46; Menozzi, 1932c: 95, all forms) from Tunisia, basalis (Santschi, 1929b: 42, all forms) from Algeria, bellicosus (Karavaiev, 1924: 307, worker) from Iran, congolensis (Stitz, 1916: 396, illustrated, worker) from Chad, protuberatus (Crawley, 1920b: 177, worker) from Iraq, pubens (Santschi, 1929b: 43, all forms) from Morocco, rufiventris (Emery, 1925b: 265, worker) from Greece, seticornis (Myrmecocystus bicolor ssp setipes variety seticornis, Emery, 1906d: 58, worker; the only mention in Wheeler, 1922) from Ghana, and sudanicus (Karavaiev, 1912b: 590, illustrated, worker & male [unavailable on HNS]) from Sudan; junior synonyms fairmairei (Foerster, 1850b: 494, male), megalocola (Foerster, 1850b: 490, worker; Emery, 1891b: 16, queen & male) and rotundinodis (Karavaiev, 1912a: 16, worker) all from Algeria .

NOTE - I have separated off Cataglyphis congolensis, with gibbosus (labelled by Stitz but undescribed) as a synonym, and Cataglyphis seticornis. With these separations there is no evidence of bicolor from sub-Saharan Africa. The new realisation that there is a separate species, Cataglyphis sp Lenoir collected, from the Sahel zone indicates that the Forel (1910e) report of bicolor from Ghana was erroneous. Moreover. either this new species or seticornis surely gave gave rise to the old record of Cataglyphis setipes from Ghana; that has an angular profile to the petiole and marked white pubescence on much of the body.

Fabricius's (1793) description is at . Foerster's (1850b) description of the male,fairmaieri is at and . Foerster's (1850b) description of megalocola, worker, is at Emery (1906b: 184) gave an illustrated comparative consideration, this is at . Karavaiev's (1912b) description of sudanicus is at .

Santschi (1929b) noted adusta n var had the tarsi of major wokers as of a red-brown, darker than the alitrunk; the media workers are even darker than the equivalent type media of the same size;
basalis n var with the workers brighter red than the type, the gaster black with the base of the first two segments reddish;
pubens n var was of a clear red, the gaster black, often slightly bronzed and less shiny than the type, the small workers often are less dull, the head and alitrunk remaining red and only the legs are brown.

WORKER - Petiole nodiform, gaster raised in locomotion, propodeum arched (from key to species-groups in Agosti, 1990). The bicolor complex was given by Agosti as having bicoloured workers which have appressed white to yellow pubescence on the hind tibiae. He further noted the bicolor complex as known from North Africa to Ivory Coast. The photograph (right) is from Hölldobler & Wilson (1990).

Wehner, Wehner & Agosti (1994), however, separated Tunisian Cataglyphis bicolor as - [bicolor, savignyi & viaticus] petiole nodiform, 3rd & 4th segments of maxillary palp about equal length; then, bicolor - head & alitrunk dark red, legs often black, black erect hairs on occiput, black pubescence on hind tibia.
They found also that bicolor prefers clayey soils, even heavy, moist soils, whereas viaticus and savignyi are distributed over more sandy areas.