Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of Niue, Polynesia

Abstract

Niue is a single isolated island in Polynesia. Based on reexamination of specimens from an earlier study and unpublished specimen data, I removed three erroneous records from the list of known ants from Niue (Paratrechina flavipes, Pheidole mus, and Tetramorium bicarinatum), corrected one name (Monomorium liliuokalanii instead of Monomorium monomorium), and added one new species record (Vollenhovia samoensis). Of the 33 ant species I report from Niue, 18 are Indo-Pacific natives and 15 are exotics. The ant fauna of Niue is almost entirely a subset of the fauna of neighboring Tonga and Samoa. Of the ant species native to the Indo-Pacific region found in Niue, only one was not also known from both Tonga and Samoa. Most or all of the other 17 species seem likely to be native to Niue (i.e., predating human arrival). This is particularly apparent for a local endemic species, V. samoensis, which was once considered to be a Samoan endemic but is now also known from Tonga and Niue.