Messor foreli Santschi

Type location Tunisia (Messor aegyptiacus var foreli, Santschi, 1923f: 322, illustrated, worker; raised to species Bernard, 1951: 92).

Santschi's (1923f) description is at . reporting findings from the Fezzan area of inland Libya, Bernard (1948: 139) gave an illustration of foreli, he noted that it niche was in alluvial soil of deserts, at the periphery of oases and in gardens.

Egypt records - Menozzi (1929e, as variety of M. aegyptiacus) several workers from Kaa desert, Sinai, collected by F S Bodenheimer. Mohamed et al (2001, illustrated); the illustration and their key separation "Propodeum armed with triangular teeth, body entirely black, dorsum of propodeum completely striated; petiole with three pairs of hairs", conflicts with Santschi's description, which has the sculpturation reduced when compared with aegyptiacus (not found in Sinai by Mohamed et al) and has the flat downturned propodeal teeth; erect hairs rare on the alitrunk and the rest glabrous (apart from on the anterior head and gastral apex). I conclude the Mohamed et al finding was more likely to have been aegyptiacus.

Sharaf list - material examined: El-Mafareq (South Sinai), 1.iv.1998 (1); El-Mafareq (South Sinai), 18.ii.1999 (1); El-Mafareq (South Sinai), 2.v.1998 (1); El-Mafareq (South Sinai), 14.xi.1998 (1); Gebel Asfar (Qalyubiya), 29.iv.2003 (3) (SHC).

Mohamad thesis (1979) had - Kerdasa (Giza), 23.ix.1925; Bir Shiftum (Arabian desert), iii.1926; Nagh Hammadi, 3.iii.1926 (Coll.Alf.) Heliopolis (Cairo),12, 20.iv.1975; Mariut,17.x.1975; Safaga,18.xi.1975 (Coll.Ain.)

The photomontage is of specimens from Egypt, taken by Mostafa Sharaf.