Ants of China

If you are looking for a list of Chinese ant species, it is here: China.

This page is meant to serve as a place to organize information about China's ants.

China Ant Identification Keys
Keys listed only by their generic name are keys exclusively for the Chinese fauna. All others are listed to show the scope of geographical coverage of the key or are for species groups within a genus that include species from China.


 * Carabera
 * Key to Carebara workers of China
 * Key to Carebara soldiers of China
 * Dolichoderus
 *  Gnamptogenys
 * Leptogenys
 * Key to Lophomyrmex of South China, Indo-China and Thailand
 * Myrmecina
 * Myopias
 * Myrmica
 * Key to Myrmica pachei group
 *  Odontomachus
 * Key to Polyrhachis Cyrtomyrma of China and the Indo-China Peninsula
 * Ponera
 *  Prenolepis
 * Pristomyrmex
 * Proceratium
 * Stigmatomma
 * Strongylognathus
 * Strumigenys
 * Key to (some) Strumigenys of China
 * There are also regional keys from Bolton 2000 (see list the identification section of the Strumigenys genus page.
 * Temnothorax
 *  Tetraponera

Ant Genera of China
Recent revisions of various genera occurring within China include a synopsis of what is known about a genus's species within China. This list is not complete but is being added as new information either becomes available or can be added here from existing publications.

Proceratium
Staab et al. 2018.

As for most other regions in which Proceratium occur, collection records and distributional information for the Chinese fauna is very limited, which is likely a consequence of the species’ cryptobiotic and partly subterranean lifestyle. This is especially true for the Proceratium itoi clade that based on currently available information seems to be restricted to east and southeast Asia (Baroni Urbani and de Andrade 2003, Guénard et al. 2017). All species of this clade except Proceratium malesianum (Peninsular Malaysia) and Proceratium williamsi (Buthan; India) have been recorded from China but are generally only known from few locations. Further collections targeting leaf litter and soil (Wong and Guénard 2017) will be necessary to clarify species-specific distribution ranges. It is expected that several species of the genus, of which some might also be new to science, occur in the large areas in south and southeast China that lack records so far (Guénard et al. 2017). Increased specimen availability will also allow associating queens and males to workers, as both reproductive castes are only known for Proceratium itoi and Proceratium japonicum (Onoyama and Yoshimura 2002, Baroni Urbani and de Andrade 2003), while for Proceratium zhaoi queens have been described (Xu 2000).

Recently, Liu et al. (2015b) recorded Proceratium deelemani Perrault, 1981, a conspicuous large-bodied species originally described from Borneo, from the tropical rain forests of Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province. After careful reexamination of the single available specimen, we find that this species differs in several important characters from Proceratium deelemani and describe it as Proceratium shohei. The species belongs to the Proceratium stictum clade and represents the northernmost record of this tropical clade in Asia.

With the exception of Proceratium bruelheidei, which type habitat is an early successional tree plantation with relatively open soil and comparatively little litter cover, all other Chinese species have only been collected from old-growth forests. Unfortunately, forests in tropical and subtropical China have been heavily transformed and fragmented (e.g. Zhang and Song 2006, Li et al. 2009), which has largely unknown but likely negative consequences for native ant assemblages (e.g. Liu et al. 2016). Direct observations of ecology and natural history are very rare for Chinese Proceratium. To the best of our knowledge, the nest size of 45 individuals for the type colony of Proceratium zhaoi given by Xu (2000) is the only published information on that matter. We assume that the general natural history of the Chinese species conforms to the observations from other parts of the world outlined above (Baroni Urbani and de Andrade 2003). This life history is also documented for the Japanese populations of Proceratium japonicum and Proceratium itoi (Masuko 1986, Onoyama and Yoshimura 2002), two species that occur in China. As for distribution ranges and habitat preferences, further observations and collections will be necessary to extend our knowledge on natural history.