Cataglyphis desertorum (Forel)

Type location Ethiopia (Myrmecocystus desertorum, Forel, 1894c: 402, worker; Karavaiev, 1912a: 17, male; raised to species Collingwood, 1985: 286. illustrated, worker; revised status Agosti, 1990a: 1491), collector Ilg, from Harar (type location wrongly given by Bolton, 1995: 135 as "Spain") .

Forel's (1894c) description of desertorum is at . Emery (1898c) gave notes on desertorum, these are at . The specimens he examined appear to have been collected from Cairo, Egypt, by Professor J Sahlberg.

As is surprisingly clear from Forel (1894c), the true type location of desertorum was Ethiopia and neither "Spain" nor "Tunisia". Santschi (1929b) gave the following, illustrated description - . Forel noted it as having relatively short legs and being very dark red in colour.

The photomontages are of specimens from Tunisia Tozeur, Lat (DMS) 33° 55' 14N Long (DMS) 8° 7' 60E Altitude (meters) 43. These were sent to me by Peter Hlavac and had been collected by T Lackner, 16-17.iii.2003. This is south of the main area of ecology studies by Wehner, Wehner & Agosti (1994) but their distribution map (Fig. 11) has Cataglyphis fortis in that area. Earlier, Wehner (1983) had commented that the only Cataglyphis found in the salty plains is C. fortis.

These specimens appear to be a good match for those described and illustrated by Santschi (1929b) as desertorum; with the domed petiole being very noticeable. The strong setae on the hind tibiae with thick black pubescence (if that is what it is) are a confusing feature not obvious from the poor descriptions of Forel, Emery, or even Santschi.

Other images can be seen in the folder at -

Minor from Tunisia

The status appears to have been confused by Collingwood (1985: 286) who noted - "This is the dullest coloured of the reddish species allied to C. bicolor (Fabricius). The head and alitrunk are often brownish rather than red. The node is less massive than C. niger (André) and has the anterodorsal face forming a flattened curve rather than an evenly rounded dome".

Later, Collingwood & Agosti (1996: 383) wrote

"Cataglyphis sp.
Cataglyphis desertorum. - Collingwood 1985: Fauna of Saudi Arabia 7: 286 [misidentification].
This is the commonest Cataglyphis species throughout Arabia and there are many collections from the southern Sinai Peninsula to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Yemen. However, no nest series is known, and only single workers were collected. in COLLINGWOOD (1985), this species appeared under the name C. desertorum Forel, 1894, but Forel's species, described from southern Tunisia, is probably a synonym of C. savignyi (Agosti & Collingwood, in prep.). For this reason, a formal description will be given later."