The taxonomic boundaries of many Neotropical ant species of the genus Tapinoma are still unclear. Tapinoma atriceps and T. atriceps breviscapum are two morphologically similar taxa which occur sympatrically in the southern Atlantic Forest of Brazil. Some characters such as the scape length and head shape suggest that these taxa may be different species. We used DNA analysis and morphological evidence, including scanning electron microscopy, to evaluate the taxonomic validity of these taxa. We found distinct morphological characteristics that allow separating them as two different species, Tapinoma atriceps and Tapinoma breviscapumstatus novo, and this decision is supported by the DNA results, where Tapinoma atriceps was recovered as a lineage independent of T. breviscapum.

中文翻译：

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形态和遗传证据支持从大西洋森林生物群系中分离出两种锥虫（蚁科，ic科）

Tapinoma属的许多新热带蚂蚁物种的分类边界仍不清楚。Tapinoma atriceps和T. atriceps breviscapum是两种形态相似的类群，同时存在于巴西南部大西洋森林中。一些特征，例如花长度和头形表明这些分类群可能是不同的物种。我们使用DNA分析和形态学证据（包括扫描电子显微镜）来评估这些分类群的分类学有效性。我们发现了独特的形态学特征，可以将它们分为两个不同的物种，即锥状锥虫和灯盏花锥虫，而这一决定得到了DNA结果的支持，其中锥状锥虫被回收为不依赖灯盏花的谱系。