The Fauna And Taxonomy Of The Family Formicidae (Insecta: Hymenoptera) From Hunan Province, P.R.China

The family Formicidae is a big family in terms of species number in the class Insecta, with more than 10,000 known species. The family of insects is widely distributed, and its total number of individuals has been estimated to surpass that of all other animal groups together. It is closely relative to the production and life of the human being, and has extremely vital economic significance. The taxonomic study of the family of insects from China was before mainly overseas scholar's fragmentary reports, and the study work has just been stepped up by domestic scholars in the past twenty years, but the difference remains compared with the international research level. Hunan Province is located in central China, with varied topography and landforms, humid monsoon climate of continental central subtropics, and high insect diversity. Earlier scientists have recorded up to 102 species from this province; however, none have taken a complete investigation on the fauna and taxonomy of the family. In view of the situation, I, under the supervision of my PhD supervisors Profs Bin Chen and Shanyi Zhou, carried out a systematic study on the fauna and taxonomy of the family of insects from this province, which has led directly to my dissertation for a PhD degree.In the research work, I solitarily went into remote mountainous area in Human Province and made a system collecting of the family of insects for 9 months, from August 2003 to November 2004. Seven national level, 18 provincial level, 4 county level of nature protection reservations, 10 forest parks and scenery scenic spot resorts (containing national, provincial and county levels), and 5 villages and towns in forest regions were visited, which are situated over 33 counties in the province. Totally, more than 30,000 ant specimens were collected over these sites during the period. Out of these specimens, over 10,000 were subsequently pin-mounted and the remaining was soaked in ethyl alcohol. On the basis of these specimens, I conducted a careful morphological identification and fauna analysis. A total of 187 species, 9 subfamilies and 61 genera were recognized and described in the present theses for the Formicidae fauna of Hunan, which include 1 new record genus for China (Vombisidris Bolton, 1991), 18 new species for science, and 3 new record species for China. 115 species were recorded for the first time from Hunan. The 18 new species are: Amblyopone sexidenticulata, Ponera breviscapa, P. dupanglingensis, P. glabrinoda, P. hunanensis, P. varicolor, Leptogenys diceraeus, L. cerchnogaster, L. sulcifrons, Aenictus quadratolobus, Crematogaster reticulata, Leptothorax hengshanensis, Leptothorax angulohumerus, Leptothorax pumilodentatus, Vombisidris umbrinabdominis, Myrmecina spaniarthrona, Aphaenogaster pyrinothorax and Camponotus occipitoculus. The 3 new record species for China are: Discothyrea kamiteta Kubota et Terayama, Aenictus thailandianus Terayama et Kubota and Oligomyrmex yamatonis Terayama.