[Taxacom] More on ants

[John Grehan]

Hi Brendon,

While taking an idle break from ghost moths, I came across Blaimer et al
2015 on ant phylogeny. Don't know how that is viewed currently (can you
clarify?), but one of their lineages Melophorini has (according to
antweb.org) an Australia-NZ range (just one genus in NZ) with marginal
presence in SE New Guinea, and also a subclade with a sister group
relationship between Notostigma in E Australia (with a break at
MacPhearson-McLeay) and Lasophanes in southern Chile/Argentina. Is this
still considered valid? I have no time right now to check on the
distribution range of the Melophorini sister group which is quite large.
Might get to that a bit later. Interesting to look at ants. Not done that
before (please bear with my ignorance on ant systematics) as NZ ant
diversity was rather limited, but I did enjoy documenting a new location
for an ant nest-inhabiting lucanid as one of my first ever publications.

Cheers, John