Paraparatrechina malaccana ( Viehmeyer, 1916 )

Hamer, Matthew T., Lee, Jonathan Hon Chung, Tse, Cheung Yau Leo, Silva, Thiago S. R. & Guénard, Benoit, 2022, Remarkable diversity in a little red dot: a comprehensive checklist of known ant species in Singapore (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) with notes on ecology and taxonomy, Asian Myrmecology (e 015006) 15, pp. 1-152 : 51-52

publication ID	https://doi.org/10.20362/am.015006
persistent identifier	https://treatment.plazi.org/id/03B68783-3167-FF96-FD4B-7F5CFC68FDB7
treatment provided by	Felipe
scientific name	Paraparatrechina malaccana ( Viehmeyer, 1916 )
status

Treatment

Paraparatrechina malaccana ( Viehmeyer, 1916) View in CoL stat. n.

Prenolepis (Nylanderia) butteli subsp. malaccana Viehmeyer, 1916: 147 (w.)

Combination in Paratrechina (Nylanderia) : Emery 1925: 220.

Combination in Paraparatrechina : LaPolla et al. 2010: 128.

Material examined. MacRitchie Reservoir , 9 Jan 2014, Sk. Yamane leg., SG14-SKY-39, ZRC _ HYM_0000439; Island Club forest (sic; in MacRitchie Reservoir), 20 May 1985, D.H. Murphy leg., ZRC _ HYM_0000774; Central Catchment Nature Reserve , 10 Sep 2011, E.J.Y. Soh leg., ZRC _ ENT00048008 View Materials ; Upper Thomson Nature Park , Sep-Oct 2016, G.W. Yong et al. leg., ZRC _ ENT00057813-57817 View Materials ; Bukit Batok East Avenue 6, 27-29 Sep 2016, G.W. Yong et al. leg., ZRC _ ENT00049050 View Materials , 57818 View Materials ; Mandai Road , Nov-Dec 2016, G.W. Yong et al. leg., ZRC _ ENT00057819-57821 View Materials ; Sunset Way , 22 Aug 2016, G.W. Yong leg., ZRC _ ENT00049056-49057 View Materials .

Material not physically examined. Unknown.

Literature. None. New record.

Localities. Bukit Batok; Central Catchment Nature Reserve; MacRitchie Reservoir; Mandai Road; Sunset Way; Upper Thomson Nature Park.

Habitat/Ecology. This species was found in both young and old/mature secondary forest, largely on shrubs or foliage. Individuals were sometimes collected by manual beating of vegetation, and in one instance, in a pitfall trap.

Remarks. Paraparatrechina malaccana was originally recognized as a subspecies of P. butteli (Forel, 1913) . Based on our assessment of local specimens and comparisons with online type images and original descriptions, we believe that the subspecies malaccana is distinct from P. butteli and should be raised to species.

Workers of both species can be differentiated based on the following ( P. butteli traits in parentheses): 1) head rounded in full-face view, sides convex, eyes very wide apart from each other, positioned above transverse midline of head (head more elongate-oval, longer than wide, eyes positioned at transverse midline of head), 2) head with bluish-green sheen, rest of body mostly brownish with a faintly-metallic purple or violet sheen (head and body largely uniformly blackish brown or brown and shiny, but shimmer not coloured as in P. malaccana ), 3) meso- and meta- pleura mostly smooth and shining (same lateral faces finely reticulate and weakly shining), 4) mid-

and hind tibiae and tarsi pale-whitish, distal ends of femora articulating with those tibiae also distinctly pale-whitish, tibiae with faint traces of brown – intensity of brown traces varies among individuals (mid- and hind tibiae brown, distal ends of femora mostly pale-brown and not strongly contrasting with rest of brown femur, tarsi pale-whitish).

We have also observed isometric size polymorphism amongst individuals from the same sample, with the smallest individuals of total length ~ 1mm, and larger individuals about 1.5 – 2 mm.