Pheidole species groups

Organizing species into species groups has been used to help manage dealing with Pheidole diversity. Over the past few decades much has been done to improve our understanding of the genus at various levels, from its relationship to other genera down to individual species identities.

The neotropics are the center of Pheidole diversity. The contemporary study of this region began with E.O. Wilson's (2003) revision, organizing 625 species into 19 species groups.

[|New World Pheidole]

The geographical coverage of this revision was good from North America through Central America, but was increasingly incomplete moving southward into South America. Alexandre Casadei-Ferreira has recently began working on what he hopes to be a long term project studying the Pheidole of the southern half of South America.

The astounding diversity of the New World Pheidole makes the use of species groups less helpful than in other regions. Unless you have experience and familiarity with Pheidole it can be a daunting task to determine a series to species using Wilson's keys, i.e., first determining the species group with one key then using the appropriate species key for that group. Longino has adopted the use of matrix keys for Pheidole identification. Using different discrete and measured characters, it is possible to reduce the possibilities to a small subset of species. A species determination is then made by comparing characters between the available options.

The Pheidole in other regions are less consolidated by any single modern, revisionary framework. The following pages include information about Pheidole species groups beyond the New World.


 * Pheidole Afrotropical species groups
 * Pheidole Madagascar species groups
 * Pheidole knowlesi group - Fiji
 * Pheidole roosevelti group - Fiji