Cardiocondyla kagutuchi

Japanese Name

Hiyake-hadaka-ari

Terayama, M., (1999) Taxonomic studies of the Japanese Formicidae, Part 6. Genus Cardiocondyla Emery. Memoirs of the Myrmecological Society of Japan 1: 99-107.

Total length of workers around 2 mm. Body color blackish brown to black. Extremely resembles C. nuda. Worker petiolar node tends to be much slenderer anterodorsally than in C. nuda, but this characteristic is not constant.

This species closely resembles C. nuda. It is very difficult to distinguish the two morphologically. Indeed, the morphological descriptions given here for the two taxa are almost identical. However, Cardiocondyla kagutsuchi has 27 chromosomes, while C. nuda has 28 (Imai & Yamauchi, unpubl.). Also, the male caste system of C. kagutuchi differs from that of C. nuda. The former is dimorphic, with both alate and ergatoid males, while C. nuda has only ergatoid males.

Ishigaki I.