Tapinoma simrothi Krausse
Type location Sardinia (Tapinoma erraticum var.
simrothi, Krausse, 1911: 18, worker only; Emery, 1925d:
49, queen and male, also raised to species); ssp festae
from Greece (Emery, 1925d: 51, illustrated, queen &
male) and phoeniceum from Cyprus (as phoenicia,
Emery, 1925d: 50, illustrated, all forms [unavailable]); see
Shattuck (1994: 154 [unavailable]).
Krausse's (1911) brief description is at
 .
Diagnosis follows Collingwood (1985: 242). As a typical
Dolichoderine, has gaster in dorsal view with four visible
tergites, the anal and associated orifices are ventral. propodeum
unarmed or rarely with a pair of blunt tubercles; eyes at or in
front of the midlength of the head on the dorsal surface.
This species has the anterior clypeal border with a distinct
notch, Collingwood (1985) describes it as a slit-like cleft; whole
body including legs dark brown. TL > 2.5 mm.
Collingwood (1985) noted it as abundant in the Middle East and
locally common also in North Africa and parts of South Europe,
active daytime scavenger and also tends Homoptera on shrubs.
Egypt records - as Tapinoma erraticum Latr. var
erratico-nigerrimum Forel, workers and male from Cairo by
Karavaiev (1911: 9; my deduction; latter name is a nomen nudum
in Bolton, 1995: 400, type location Algeria, erraticum
otherwise seem to be from France and the western Mediterranean);
Alfieri (1931) listed findings from the 1925 survey - Behera
Province, 3 locations, Dakahlieh Province, El Hachawa, Fayoum
province, Tamia; Finzi (1936: 183); only Dolichoderine listed by
Mohamed et al. (2001) from Sinai, also in Lower Nile and
Delta areas of Egypt.
The photomontage is of specimens collected in the Sinai Desert,
Egypt, St Katherine protectorate around the town of St Katherine,
in mountains above 1500m, in early 2001, by Mike James, a research
student of Francis Gilbert. Mike James comments that it is a
solitary forager active even at the hottest time of day, when it
moves very fast over the gravel with its abdomen cocked. Type form
- Elqasmia (Belbis), 21.II.2003 (4); Wadi El-Arish, 14.III.2002
(1) (SHC); Ebn Salam (Daqahliya, Egypt), 13.IV.1999 (3)
Leg.M.R.Sharaf (ASUC), phoenicium - El-Marg, El-Ameryia
(Sharaf list).
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From Egypt, it was illustrated by Savigny (Audouin, J.-V.
1825-27: Plate 20 Fig 10).