Book Reviews
A New General
Catalogue of the Ants
of the World
Barry Bolton
Harvard UniversityPress,Cambridge, MA,
1995
504 pp., $125
ISBN 0-674-61514
C
ARLO EMERY, THE GREAT ITALIAN MYRMECOL-
ogist, catalogued the then-known ant
fauna of the world in several fascicles of the
Genera Insectorum (1910-1925). All told,
about 4,611 species were recognized (as well
as a great many subspecies and varieties), arrayed among about 235 genera. Since that
time, there have been a few regional catalogues and many regional lists. Emery's was,
however, more than the usual catalog, for it
included keys for the genera and subgenera
of the Formicidae and was the foundation
on which all subsequent ant classification
was based. Only in recent years has that system faced serious challenge, culminating in
Bolton's epic Identification Guide to the Ant
Genera of the World (1994, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA).
Bolton now has followed that Identification Guide with the current volume, listing
all known ant taxa (and taxa once thought
to belong to the Formicidae), from 1758 to
1993, recognizing "the following numbers
of valid extant taxa: 16 subfamilies, 296
genera, and 9,536 species (up to 31 December 1993)." Among the extant forms is also
an uncounted number of subspecies, junior
synonyms, junior homonyms, and unavailable names. Also included are 84 pages of
references that presumably include every
publication naming and/or describing a new
taxon in the Formicidae. There is also a
"Checklist of the Fossil Taxa." Whew!
The general catalog is divided into three
sections: (1) family-group (suprageneric)
taxa (pp. 8-16), (2) genus-group taxa (pp.
18-50), and (3) species-group taxa (pp. 53427). Eschewing any attempt to set up a hypothetical "phylogenetic"
arrangement,
Bolton has arranged all taxa in a strictly alphabetical fashion.
Entries are divided into three columns on
the 10 by 12 inch pages, in smallish type. Citations are not in the conventional, spaceconsuming format of most catalogs but,
rather, are in a very abbreviated form as, in
the following two examples:
ADELOMYRMEX (Myrmicinae: Stenammini?)
Adelomyrmex Emery, 1897c:590. Typespecies: Adelomyrmex biroi, by means of
AMERICAN
ENTOMOLOGIST
Summer 1997
monotypy. Adelomyrmex senior synonym of Apsychomyrmex:
Kempf,
1972a:18. Adelomyrmex provisional senior synonym of Arctamyrmex: Brown,
1973b:178; confirmed Bolton, 1994:
106.
or:
bakeri. Camponatus hyatti var. bakeri
Wheeler, W.M.
1904d:271 (w.q.) U.S.A. Combination
in C. (Myrmentoma): Emery, 925b:119.
Subspecies of hyatti: Creighton, 1950a:
387; Smith, M.R. 1951a: 844. Raised to
species: Snelling, 985:24; Snelling 1988:
60.
Although this format does take some getting used to, all the essential information is
there.
There is no index, as such, to taxa. The
entries within the catalog are their own index, so a given species-group name may, if it
has been assigned to several different genera
over the years, appear several times, all previous combinations ending with a reference
to the current placement, such as "caeca
Buckley,1867; see under NEIVAMYRMEX."
The diligence with which Bolton has sought
out junior homonyms is as staggering as is his
admirable restraint in dealing with most of
them. Only in groups that are reasonably well
known has he renamed junior homonyms;
most are left unresolved, pending study of the
group involved.
Genus-group names appear also in the
general catalog of species-group names.,
(e.g., "FORMICINA: see under FORMICA" or "#COLOBOPSIS: see under CAMPONOTUS.") (presumably valid taxa are
indicated in bold face; the "#" is used to indicate a subspecies or subgenus) This would
seem a needless duplication of entries that
already appear in the catalog of genusgroup names.
As a result of Bolton's customary attention to detail, typographical errors are few,
indeed. Casual browsing has thus far yielded only two: p. 291, "swaisonii" should be
swainsonii; and p. 488, following Snelling
1985, "Millar" should be Miller.
A minor complaint is that variant spellings or misspellings are frequently unnoticed. For example, there are no references to
Aphaenogaster "cocquerelli" (rather than
cockerelli), as cited by Emery (1921) in his
Genera Insectorum catalog; nor is Emery's
1905 bizarre "pieing" of Camponotus chilensis to C. "lssicheni."
The one substantial complaint that I
have about the catalog is that species' ranges
are not given. The only indication of distri-
bution is the country of the type locality;
whether or not the species is found beyond
the limits of that country is not revealed.
This limitation also may be highly misleading: the type of Solenopsis geminata rufa
(now regarded as a synonym of S. geminata)
was from India. There is no indication that
this species is introduced from the Neotropies nor that the New World range of S.
geminata extends from the southeastern
United States to northern Argentina. It is
this one feature, more than any other, that
will seriously limit the usefulness of this volume for those who are not experienced
myrmecologists. The nonspecialist will derive no benefit from this failure to indicate at
least general distribution. Another limiting
feature is that this is a strictly taxonomic catalog. There are no references to works dealing with biology, behavior, ecology, etc.
This is a remarkable achievement by a
man who is probably the leading myrmecologist of our time. It is a necessary companion volume to his Identification Guide and
an invaluable reference source.
Roy R. Snelling
Natural History Museum of
Los Angeles County
Los Angeles, CA
Entomology
Cedric Gillott
Plenum Press, New York, 2nd ed., 1995
798 pp., $85
ISBN 0-306-44966-8
G
ILLOTT HAS PREPARED THIS SECOND EDITION
to update his well-received 1980 textbook, Entomology. The format of this edition does not deviate at all from that of the
previous one. The book originally was designed for a final-year, undergraduate, introductory entomology course, as was a
plethora of other references. To complement
a textofthis type, many programs have developed their own companion laboratory manuals to provide taxonomic keys. In those
cases, Gillott would make a very fine textbook, as long as the introductory course does
not delve more than superficially into economic entomology. On this topic, only 5 pages are allotted to pest insects and 23 to insect
control, out of 798 total pages in the book.
The book is divided into four major sections: (I) "Evolution and Diversity," (II)
"Anatomy and Physiology," (III) "Reproduction and Development," and (IV) "Ecology." Section I, "Evolution and Diversity,"
accounts for approximately 40% of the
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