Tetramorium caespitum (Linnaeus)

Type location Europe (Formica caespitum, Linnaeus, 1758: 581, worker; Latreille, 1798: 50, queen & male; Mayr, 1861: 62, queen & male); junior synonyms fusca (Formica fusca, Leach, 1825: 290, queen & male; synonymy Dalla Torre, 1893: 132) from France, fuscula (Formica fuscula, Nylander, 1846a: 935, illustrated, all forms; synonymy F Smith, 1851: 118) from Finland, hammi (Donisthorpe, 1915d: 178, worker; synonymy Bolton, 1995: 408) from Gt Britain, himalayanum (Viehmeyer, 1914c: 38, all forms; synonymy Radchenko, 1992b: 50) from India, immigrans (Santschi, 1927a: 54, worker; synonymy, Bolton, 1979: 171) from Chile, indocile (Santschi, 1927a: 53, all forms; synonymy, Radchenko, 1992: 50) from Turkestan, modesta (Foerster, 1850a: 49, worker; synonymy Curtis, 1854: 215; Mayr, 1855: 246) from Germany, transbaicanense (Ruszky, 1936: 93 [unavailable], worker; synonymy Radchenko, 1992b: 50 - in Russian) from Turkestan, transversinodis (J Enzmann, 1946b: 47, illustrated, worker; synonymy Brown, 1949a: 47 [unavailable]) from USA; subspecies alternans (Santschi, 1929e: 150, worker) from Morocco, barabense (Ruzsky, 1925a: 288, worker) from Russia, caespitomoravicum (Kratochvil, in Novak & Sadil, 1941: 86, in key) from Slovakia, flavidulum (Emery, 1922f: 276, worker) from Turkey, japonicum (Röszler, 1936a: 121, worker & queen) from Japan, oxyomma (Karaviaev, 1912a: 13, all forms) from Algeria, pallidum (Stitz, 1934: 2, worker) from China, penninum (Santschi, 1927a: 54, worker) from Switzerland, rhodium (T. caespitum ssp caespitum var rhodia, Emery, 1915h: 3, worker; Emery, 1922f: 277) from Greece and typicum (Ruzsky, 1902c: 14, all forms) from Turkestan.
3622 Santschi, F. 1927. A propos du Tetramorium caespitum L. Fol. Myrmecol. Termitol. 1, 53-58.

Linnaeus's (1758) description is at . Emery (1925) gave an analysis of the then known forms of T. caespitum, this is at . Perusal of that shows a confused mess of the many forms and I am not attempting any analysis, simply giving the examples below of specimens of T. caespitum s.l. as collected in Iran. Bolton (1979: 171) gave a short illustrated description from North American specimens; this is at .

The photomontage is of a specimen from Iran, collected by Omid Paknia.

Other images can be seen in the folders at - , , and

The photomontage is of a second specimen from Iran, collected by Omid Paknia.