Phylogenetic affinities of Cataglyphis bazoftensis (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from Iran

The ant Cataglyphis bazoftensis Khalili-Moghadam Salata Borowiec, 2021 has been recently described in Iran. Here, new materials of C. bazoftensis were collected from five new localities in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari provinces, Iran. All the specimens examined were morphologically consistent with the description of C. bazoftensis. At the molecular level, based on a phylogenetic trees obtained from the mitochondrial Cytochrome C oxidase subunit I gene (COI), C. bazoftensis appears as the sister taxon of Cataglyphis kurdistanica Pisarski, 1965, separated from each other by a genetic distance of 9.79 %