Records of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from Northern Iran

The results of ant collecting in two hitherto unsampled areas of Iran, the north eastern province of Khorasan Razavi and the north western Zanjan Province are reported. Both areas fall within lacunae of knowledge on previous distribution. Species previously not known from Iran are Aphaenogaster holtzi, Camponotus (Myrmentoma) rebeccae, Cataglyphis albicans, Cataglyphis rockingeri, Lasius himalayanus and Proformica ferreri.


Introduction
Geographically, Iran sits at the crossroads between Europe, Central Asia and South Asia but, other than a very few publications in the early-20th century, almost nothing was known of the ant fauna. A comprehensive review of those early findings, plus a few from 2000-2006, was given by Paknia, Radchenko, Alipanah, and Pfeiffer (2008). They list 110 species and also give a full reference list. More recent records are those of Seifert and Schulz (2009), Paknia, Radchenko, and Pfeiffer (2010), Radchenko and Paknia (2010), Agosti (2011), Nezhad, Rad, Firouzi, andAgosti (2012) and Kiran, Alipanah, and Paknia (2013). We report here new ant material from two hitherto unsampled areas of Iran, the north eastern province of Khorasan Razavi and the north western Zanjan Province. Both areas fall within lacunae of knowledge on previous distribution. The list includes six species previously not known from Iran.

Collecting Areas
The North-eastern Khorasan Razavi province (Reyhan Nafisi) is a desert and semi-desert area with maximum 200 mm average annual rainfall. The dominant vegetation of this area is Haloxylon species and Tamarix hispida Willd., both being halophytic (salt tolerant) species. The Northeastern Zanjan Province (Shabnam Moradloo) is a mountainous region with a temperate climate. Most collecting stations were from amongst similar vegetation in areas of plains and low hills. Gholikandi, however, is riverine with woods and, thus, a different pattern of vegetation. Dandi and Seghletooli are arid and semi-arid had the lowest species richness. It seemed clear that moisture level is a key factor that affecting ant species richness. Both areas fall within lacunae of knowledge shown on the maps published by Paknia et al. (2008Paknia et al. ( , 2010.

Methods
Ant sampling by hand collecting was done in the spring and summer of 2012 and 2013. The specimens were preserved in 96% alcohol and taken to the Biosystematics Laboratory in Shahid Zoology in the Middle East, 2015Vol. 61, No. 2, 168-173, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09397140.2015 first published online 16 March 2015) Beheshti University, Tehran. Preliminary sorting and identification was done in Iran. Representative specimens were sent to Brian Taylor (B.T.), who made definitive identifications and comparisons with images of type specimens, as published by the California Academy of Sciences Antweb project. In the lists given below such images are denoted by a code consisting of numbers preceded by CASENT, CFH, CSH, FMNHINS or ANTWEB. The originals can be sighted at www.antweb.org by entering the code in the search box. The specimens identified by B.T. will be labelled, catalogued and deposited with the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Oxford, UK. Photographs of all the species will be incorporated in a section of the website www.antsofafrica.org. The website is archived by the UKWebArchive under the auspices of the British Library. We give only a restricted reference list as Paknia et al. (2008) gave a comprehensive list.

Species List
The collection zones, species identifications and habitat notes, plus the number of specimens examined by B.T., are given in the online Appendix as Tables 1 and 2, together with location maps and notes on some of the Antweb images relating to the prior publications. The symbol * denotes comparison with type images accessed on Antweb, with the reference number.
Notes on Antweb images of specimens from Iran "Camponotus kiesenwetteri", a worker from Baluchistan, Iran, CASENT280606, is not the same as several examples of major and minor workers from Greece, the type location (e.g. CASENT0179872, CASENT0249985). The domed petiole profile is suggestive of the poorly defined non-African variations of Camponotus (Orthonotomyrmex) sericeus, as keyed in Radchenko (1997cRadchenko ( ?/1996. "Camponotus thales", CFH000020, a worker from Mazandaran, clearly differs from the type images of the Lesotho species (CASENT0910113 major, CASENT 0910114, minor). "Cataglyphis bicolor", listed as from Teheran but without images, FMNHINS0000046224, cannot be verified. Cataglyphis isis (Forel, 1913), the Iran specimen (ANTWEB1008061), matches the type images (CASENT0249889) from Egypt, and a cotype of the junior synoynm Cataglyphis protuberata from Iran, "NW Persia, collector Crawley (CASENT0911117), described by Crawley (1920: 177) and synonymised by Radchenko (1997: 431). "Lasius flavus" CFH000053, labelled by F. Firouzi, from Mazandaran, Iran (Nezhad et al. 2012) probably is Lasius flavescens Forel 1904, type images CASENT0911048, type location Uzbekistan. "Proformica nitida", CFH000007, labelled "Proformica IR02" by F. Firouzi and in Nezhad et al. (2012) appears too small and too light brown to be that species, see the type images CASENT0912279. It is very similar to what we identify as Proformica ferreri (see above). "Temnothorax anodontoides", CFH000026, collector F. Firouzi, possibly the same as the Temnothorax anodonta in  but there are no images of that on Antweb, nor of the type T. anodontoides. Drawings of T. anodontoides, in Radchenko (1994), show a rounded transition from dorsum to declivity of the propodeum in profile view. CFH000026 has small but distinct teeth, or sharp angles at the transition. In frontal view the head of CFH000026 seems similar to the drawing of T. anodonta given by Radchenko (1994).

Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.