ANNALES ZOOLOGICI (Warszawa), 2018, 68(4): 769-808 TAXONOMIC REVISION OF THE CRETAN FAUNA OF THE GENUS TEMNOTHORAX MAYR, 1861 (HYMENOPTERA: FORMICIDAE), WITH NOTES ON THE ENDEMISM OF ANT FAUNA OF CRETE SEBASTIAN SALATA1*, LECH BOROWIEC2, APOSTOLOS TRICHAS3 1Institute for Agricultural and Forest Environment, Polish Academy of Sciences, Bukowska 19, 60-809 Poznań, Poland; e-mail:
[email protected] 2Department of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Taxonomy, University of Wrocław, Przybyszewskiego 65, 51-148 Wrocław, Poland; e-mail:
[email protected] 3Natural History Museum of Crete, University of Crete, Greece; e-mail:
[email protected] *Corresponding author Abstract.— We revise the Cretan species of the ant genus Temnothorax Mayr, 1861. Sixteen species are recognized, including seven new species which are possiblyendemic to Crete: T. crassistriatus sp. nov., T. daidalosi sp. nov., T. ikarosi sp. nov., T. incompletus sp. nov., T. minotaurosi sp. nov., T. proteii sp. nov., and T. variabilis sp. nov. A new synonymy is proposed, Temnothorax exilis (Emery, 1869) =Temnothorax specularis (Emery, 1916) syn. nov. An identification key to Cretan Temnothorax, based on worker caste is given. We provide a checklist of ant species described from Crete and discuss their status, distribution and endemism. Ë Key words.— Key, checklist, Myrmicinae, new species, Mediterranean Subregion, new synonymy INTRODUCTION 2000 mm in the high White Mountains range (Lefka Ori) (Grove et al. 1993). Temperature on mountains Crete is the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean seems to fall at a rate of about 6°C per 1000 m (Rack- ham & Moody 1996). Above 1600 m most of the precipi- Sea and the biggest island of Greece.