The Palaearctic members of the subgenus Lasius s.str.

Hi Teleutotje,

thank you very much, very interesting! I read some parts of it during waiting for a Camponotus ligniperdus colony to swarm (which did not happen...).

The article is about much, really much more, of course. But in conclusion we ant keepers are no scientists and we simplify a lot of topics massively for our daily routine with our ants. E.g. we call all ants looking like Lasius niger just "Lasius niger" or at last "Lasius cf. niger" - but in this work you can read a lot about ant species, their similarities and so on. I´m sure in ant keeping there are many species, which are defined not correctly, just because you need special equipment for doing this. For us it doesn´t matter, because keeping them is so similar, too - it does not effect us.

Nevertheless: Most important for us I read, that the division of Lasius to the subgenera Lasius s. str., Cautolasius, Dendrolasius, Chtonolasius and Austrolasius is clearly confirmed and there are really no (Palaearctic) Lasius species, which are not part of those subgenera - and those subgenera are quite very specific in their way of life.

Zitat von Bernhard Seifert (Page 15)

The subdivision of the subgenera Lasius s.str. Ruzsky 1913, Cautolasius Wilson 1955, Dendrolasius, Ruzsky 1913, Chthonolasius Ruzsky 1913 and Austrolasius Faber 1967 is clearly confirmed by morphological data with each of the 99 recognized Palaearctic species being unambiguously assignable to either subgenus.

So far so good. But there is one point, I do not fully understand:

Zitat von Bernhard Seifert (Page 21)

The morphological separation of the five Palaearctic subgenera of the genus Lasius was already outlined by Wilson (1955). The situation is comfortable as each of the 99 species I know from the area can be clearly allocated to one of these entities. And even more: we have full congruence of morphology and life histories given by the fact that all species of Dendrolasius, Austrolasius and Chthonolasius are temporary social parasites whereas all species of Cautolasius and Lasius s.str. can found their colonies independently. To complete the story, genetic studies of Janda et al. (2004) and Maruyama et al. (2008) confirmed this subgeneric subdivision. This clear situation justifies raising each of these subgenera to genus level. No taxonomic confusion would result from this use as the word ”lasius“ is contained in each generic name. Any researcher will immediately know which species is behind the names Cautolasius flavus or Chthonolasius umbratus .

Is this just a proposal of Mr. Seifert, or is this an already made decision of the myrmecologist community? The impact on us ant keepers would be not calling e.g. Lasius flavus "Lasius flavus" anymore, but "Cautolasius flavus" in future. So we would have to revise all the species descriptions of Lasius in the forums.

I understand it as a proposal at present?