Species Accounts

Ant Identification

• See Ant Identification for guidelines on how to identify ants.
• Several Identification keys are available, covering different Taxa and Geographic regions.
  • Keys to Subfamilies
  • Keys to Genera
  • Keys to Subgenera and Species Groups
  • The complete Identification Key list
  • They can also be found in the subfamily or genus page (Keys to Ponerinae genus, Keys to Tetramorium species)
• Some regions have summary pages that gather all current available information to identify ants to species level:
  • Afrotropical Region (Excluding Arabian Peninsula)
  • Afrotropical Region Species List
  • Neotropical Region
• Character States for Extant Ant Genera of the Formicidae are listed in a table derived from Synopsis of the Formicidae (Bolton 2003).

Browse by Rank

• Subfamilies
• Genera
• Species
• Subspecies
• Genus-level Classification

Taxa by Region

• Afrotropical
• Australasian
• Indo-Australian
• Nearctic
• Neotropical
• Palaearctic

Taxa by Country

• List of Countries
• Countries by Region

Fossil Taxa

• Subfamilies
• Genera
• Species
• All fossils (subfamilies, genera and species)
• Fossil genera and species by subfamily

Lists of Names

• Taxa described for each year from 1758 to current year
• Assorted lists of Names in Taxonomy
• Common Names of ants
• List of Museums and Institutions with Formicidae Collections

Downloadable Data

• Online Catalogue of the Ants of the World - Barry Bolton continues to update his Online Catalogue of the Ants of the World and new versions are available here.
  • His older Synopsis of the Formicidae (Date: 2014-09-05) is now out of date, but is available for historical reasons.
    

• Data - In addition to the NGC, lists of taxon names and associated data can be downloaded as spreadsheet files. Right-click, save and open with Excel.
  • Genera
    • List of valid genera (names in use) (tab-delimited text) (Date: 2025-01-30)
    • List of invalid genera (names not in use) (tab-delimited text) (Date: 2025-02-05)
  • Species
    • List of valid species (names in use) (tab-delimited text) (Date: 2025-02-04)
    • List of invalid species (names not in use) (tab-delimited text) (Date: 2025-02-04)
    • Type specimen details (tab-delimited text) (Date: 2025-02-04)
  • Fossils
    • List of valid fossil genera (names in use) (tab-delimited text) (Date: 2025-02-05)
    • List of valid fossil species (names in use) (tab-delimited text) (Date: 2025-02-04)
  • World Distribution
    • Distribution based on Regional Taxon Lists (combined Regional Taxon Lists data (tab-delimited text)) (Date: 2025-01-31)