Data from: Two new phragmotic ant species from Africa: morphology and next-generation sequencing solve a caste association problem in the genus Carebara Westwood

Phragmotic or “door head” ants have evolved independently in several ant
genera across the world, but in Africa only one case has been documented
until now. Carebara elmenteitae (Patrizi) is known from only a single
phragmotic major worker collected from sifted leaf-litter near Lake
Elmenteita in Kenya, but here the worker castes of two species collected
from Kakamega Forest, a small rainforest in Western Kenya, are studied.
Phragmotic major workers were previously identified as Carebara
elmenteitae and non-phragmotic major and minor workers were assigned to C.
thoracica (Weber). Using evidence of both morphological and
next-generation sequencing analysis, it is shown that phragmotic and
non-phragmotic workers of the two different species are actually the same
and that neither name – C. elmenteitae or C. thoracica – correctly applies
to them. Instead, this and another closely related species from Ivory
Coast are both morphologically different from C. elmenteitae, and thus
they are described as the new species Carebara phragmotica sp. n. and
Carebara lilith sp. n.