Seven species in seven days: new additions to the ant fauna (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) of Lebanon

Lebanon is expected to be among the most important biodiversity hotspots in the Mediterranean. The latest ant checklist of the country, counting 110 taxa, was published in 2014. Here we record seven species to be added to the Lebanese checklist, belonging to five genera from the Formicinae, Myrmicinae, and Ponerinae subfamilies. Four are considered natives [Hypoponera eduardi (Forel, 1894), Lasius illyricus Zimmermann, 1935, Lasius israelicus Seifert, 2020, and Trichomyrmex perplexus (Radchenko, 1997)] and three non-native species [Pheidole indica Mayr, 1879, Pheidole parva Mayr, 1865, and Tetramorium bicarinatum (Nylander, 1846)]. The record of L. illyricus represents the first from the Levant, while the recently described L. israelicus likely has a much wider distribution in the region than its formal name suggests. None of the non-native species is considered invasive. The new discoveries, attained with a relatively limited sampling effort during seven days, highlight the need for further studies to describe the Lebanese ant fauna.