Cataglyphis c.f. nodus ( Brullé, 1833 )

Khalili-Moghadam, Arsalan & Oraie, Hamzeh, 2023, New data on Cataglyphis nodus (Brullé, 1833) (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) from Iran, Journal of Insect Biodiversity and Systematics 9 (3), pp. 439-447 : 441-443

Cataglyphis c.f. nodus ( Brullé, 1833) ( Fig. 2)

Diagnosis (Workers). Morphologically, the examined specimens were most similar to the description of Cataglyphis nodus ( Brullé, 1833) with the following characters: body bicoloured, head and thorax with different shades of red sometimes red colouration strongly reduced, abdomen black-brown to black, body with scarce erect setae, mesonotum not raised above pronotum, propodeum broadly rounded, petiole node-shaped, more or less rounded in dorsal view, first segment of flagellomere long, distinctly longer than second, third maxillary palpomere normal (not flattened), with shorter erect hairs more than 1.5 time as long as maximum palpomere width.

Molecular analysis. Our genetic analyses reveal that the minimum genetic distance between pairs of species referred to C. niger and Iranian specimens ( C. nodus ) was 1.61%, while the maximum divergence between C. holgerseni and C. isis was 8.53% ( Table 1 and Fig. 3). The tree inferred from the Bayesian analysis showing position of Iranian specimens is in Figure 3. The Iranian specimens belong to a clade containing C. holgerseni , C. niger , C. nodus and C. savignyi . The Iranian specimens clustered with C. holgerseni , although lower posterior probability support (pp=0.65) were detected in the relationship between C. holgerseni and Iranian specimens ( Fig. 3).

Taxa Proformica nasuta C. nodus ( Iran) C. holgerseni C. isis C. niger C. nodus Proformica nasuta - - - - - - C. nodus ( Iran) 0.1528 - - - - - C. holgerseni C. isis C. niger 0.1578 0.1583 0.1499 0.0423 0.0833 0.0381 - 0.0853 0.0272 - - 0.0707 - - - - - - C. nodus 0.1575 0.0409 0.0297 0.0817 0.0161 -

C. savignyi 0.1544 0.0430 0.0247 0.0824 0.0205 0.0193