Plagiolepis (Plagiolepis) pygmaea (Latreille)

Type location France (Formica pygmaea, Latreille, 1798: 45, worker & queen; Schenck, 1852: 69, male)
subspecies
bulawayensis (Arnold, 1922: 601, worker & queen) from Zimbabwe
mima (Arnold, 1922: 602, worker) from Zimbabwe
minu (Forel, 1911d: 350, worker) from Greece
all forms known (see Bolton, 1995) .

Latreille's (1802c: 183) repetition of his first description, is at . Schenck's (1852) description of all forms, including the male, is at . Arnold (1922: 600 ff), citing Latreille's (1798) description, gave a full description; that plus his descriptions of bulawayensis and mima is at . Santschi (1920g) made a study of pygmaea and its close relatives; the pygmaea description is at . Emery (1921d) made a study of the pygmaea group of Mediterranean species; this is at - . Presumably, it post-dated Arnold's (1922) work on Plagiolepis species. Emery regarded pygmaea by the species from around the Mediterranean and a group from South Africa. It seems possible that more precise study would lead to both bulawayensis and mima being raised to full species status.

Karavaiev (1931a: 309ff) considered pygmaea specimens from Palermo, Sicily, and what now is the species taurica (Plagiolepis maura var taurica, Santschi, 1920g: 171, worker; raised to species Radchenko, 1989b: 155) from Ukraine. Karavaiev's text is at .

Egypt Records - Wheeler & Mann (1916) from Wadi Feran, Sinai Peninsula; Alfieri (1931) Fayoum Province, Tamia, 1.xi.1925.

Mohamad thesis (1979) had - Egypt, (Det.Crawley,1927) (Coll.Alf.) Egypt, (Det.Crawley,1927) (Coll.Soc.) Alexandria, 5.viii.1975; Siwa oasis (Western desert), 10.iv.1976; El-Menyia, 27.i.1978; Menyia el-Qamh (Sharqyia), 30.i.1978; Baharyia oasis (Western desert), 6.iii.1979 (Coll.Ain.)

The photomontage is of a specimen from Abumadi Zaranik, North Sinai, 34°26' E, 30°39' N, collected by Mostafa Sharaf, 6.iii.2003. Other images can be seen in the folder at .

Photomontage of specimen from Egypt, photographs by Mostafa Sharaf, DSCN2248-50

The photomontage is of a queen from Mallorca, the originals can be seen on the WWW.hormigas.org website, and show the dark colour of the southern European pygmaea.

The photomontage is of a worker from Barcelona, Sant Celoni, nesting under same stone as Pheidole pallidula, 27.x.2008, collected by Xavier Espadaler. The details are the same for the specimens shown below; a second worker, a queen and a male.

Other images can be seen in the folder at -

The photomontage is of a worker from Barcelona

The photomontage is of a queen from Barcelona

The photomontage is of a male from Barcelona