6. Lasius (Lasius) alienus (Foerster 1850)

This taxon is one of the 57 currently recognized Palaearctic Lasius s. str. species, many of which are close to morphological crypsis, and less than 10 were recognized before 1992 (Seifert 1992; 2020a). In this context, older records are completely unreliable. This is the condition of almost the complete totality of the Eurosiberian L. alienus records in Italy, which makes the presence of this species on the Italian territory entirely doubtful (e.g. Baroni Urbani, 1971; Guénard et al., 2017). In Sicily, L. alienus was recorded from the following localities: Contrada Renda (near Giacalone), Santa Ninfa, Palermo, Capo Peloro and Piana di Catania (De Stefani 1885; De Stefani Perez 1894; Monastero 1950; Baroni Urbani 1964a; La Pergola et al. 2008). Moreover, it was recorded from the Egadi Islands (Scupola, 2009). Nevertheless, records by La Pergola et al. (2008) and Scupola (2009) were misidentification of L. lasioides, whose presence in Sicily was very recently discovered (Schifani & Alicata, 2018; also Scupola, pers. comm.). The distribution and ecology of L. alienus in Europe (Seifert, 2017) would suggest it would occur at relatively high altitudes in Sicily, where we found the similar L. psammophilus only (Schifani & Alicata, 2018). However, all of the old Sicilian records come from sites where the very common, thermophilous L. lasioides is expected.