Friday 1 February 2008

Camponotus flavomarginatus

Camponotus flavomarginatus is the only member of the subgenus Myrmosericus collected in The Gambia that provided no great difficulty to identify. It is distinguished by the smoothly rounded propodeum and the arrangement of the dense pubescence on the gaster, which is laid more or less straight back, rather than distinctly converging at the midline (compare with C. rufoglaucus subsp. controversus and C. cosmicus).

C. flavomarginatus is very widely distributed, being found from South Africa north to Saudi Arabia and west to Guinea. In The Gambia it was collected in the coastal areas (Kololi and Bijilo Forest Park), but did not appear to be present on Jinack Island. It was generally found as single workers running on the ground, though at Bijilo Forest Park it was collected from a palm frond.

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