Studies On The Taxonomy Of The Formicidae From The Northwest China (Hymenoptera)

The family Formicidae belongs to Hymenoptera, Apocrita, Aculeata, Vespoidea. It is a kind of comparatively advanced social insect, and plays an important role in terrestrial ecosystem. China Formicidae variety, but lack of systematic classification. The zoogeographic regions of Northwest China is North China Region and Mongolia-Xin China Region, with varied topography and landform and insect resource is very abundant. So the taxonomy studies on the Formicidae from the Northwest China are very significant.In the research work, I made collecting of the family Formicidae from september 2011 to October 2013. Acquisition habitats include desert, nature reserves, forest, mountains, oases, meadow, lake, river etc. Seven Desert such as Batankirin desert, Tengri desert, Ulanbuho desert, Kobuzn desert, Maowusu sandy land, GurbantunggUt Desert, Kumtag Desert, and 4 Mountain such as Tianshan Mountains, Borok Norsan Mountain, Altai Mountains, Qilian Mountains, and 8 national nature reserves such as Liupan Mountains, Helan Mountain, Luo Mountain, Yunwu Mountain, Baijitan, Huoshizhai, Kanas Lake, Bulgan Beaver Nature Reserve were visited, which are situated over 6 provinces(Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Shannxi, Qinghai, Xinjiang), more than 100 counties, cities, towns or villages in the Northwest China. Totally, more than 2000 ant specimens were collected over these sites. The collected ant specimens were carefully sorting, which over 19000 were subsequently pin-mountes and 1000 were soaked in ethyl alcohol. The ant specimens from the Insect Collection of Agricultural College of Ningxia University accumulated over years were observed and carefully finished. Classical morphological taxology was used to make a taxonomic identification. A tatol of 121 species,3 subfamilies and 26 genera were recognized and described, which including 11 new species for science, 2 new record species to China,3 genus revival and 1 new record genus for China. All species of morphological features, a complete individual measurement and their proportional datum were procided, 29 figure of morphological features were drawn, and distribution of each species in our country. Each species was made an precision positioning on its collecting sites using GPS.The 11 new species were listed as follows:Tetramorium toliensis, Tetramorium tuerjialiaoensis, Tetramorium duolatensis, Messor minusculus, Messor desertus, Camponotus helanshanensis, Camponotus nilkaensis, Camponotus barqinensis, Formica subsanguinea, Cataglyphis subglabrata, Cataglyphis flavidusis.Two new record species to China are Lasius talpa (Wilson,1955) and Camponotus invidus Forel, 1892.One new record genus to China is Semonius Forel,1910.The new type specimens are all deposited in the Insect Collection of Agricultural College of Ningxia University.