Cardiocondyla obscurior Wheeler 1929

Cardiocondyla obscurior Wheeler, 1929 Materials Type status: Other material. Occurrence: individualCount: 6 workers; occurrenceID: A023853A-0DCE-51C1-8985-EA38D88E9595; Taxon: genus: Cardiocondyla; specificEpithet: obscurior; scientificNameAuthorship: Wheeler, 1929; Location: island: La Réunion; country: France; municipality: Saint-Pierre; locality: Front de mer; verbatimElevation: 8 m; decimalLatitude: - 21.34389; decimalLongitude: 55.47917; Identification: identifiedBy: D. Carval; Event: samplingProtocol: pincers; verbatimEventDate: 06. VI. 2024; habitat: beach front; Record Level: collectionID: CDC Diagnosis This species closely resembles Cardiocondyla wroughtonii (Forel, 1890), which has been reported from La Réunion Island. Workers of C. obscurior (Fig. 7) differ from C. wroughtonii in having a darker gaster, a shorter head, a reduced postocular distance, a narrower frons, broader and higher waist segments, a greater distance between the bases of the propodeal spines and shorter propodeal spines (Seifert 2002). Distribution This species is native to the Indomalaya Region and has been reported as introduced in many locations, such as Brazil (Meurer et al. 2015), Venezuela (Guénard et al. 2017, Janicki et al. 2016), France and Belgium (Blatrix et al. 2018), Spain (Sánchez-García and Espadaler 2015) and Kenya (Garcia et al. 2013). Ecology Cardiocondyla obscurior has been reported from a variety of disturbed and undisturbed habitats, such as urban areas, grasslands, agricultural areas and forest margins (Seifert 2002). Nests are typically located in cavities of bushes and trees, but the species has also been found in plant galls and dead twigs.