Family FORMICIDAE Latreille, 1809

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Introduction

Best known as the 'ants', members of this family are characterised by having highly-developed social colonies comprising large numbers of the wingless sterile worker caste and fewer winged reproductives. Ants are the most ubiquitous group of insects on earth, and are extremely important as predators and herbivores in natural environments, and in nutrient turnover in soil. Numerous species have a painful sting (Myrmecia spp.), and several have become nuisance pests in urban environments. They vary in size from less than 1 mm to approximately 50 mm. Nests are most commonly constructed under rocks, in the ground or in logs, but some also construct specialised nests in tree branches by gluing green leaves together (Oecophylla spp.) or using plant fibre to construct the walls of their nest (Polyrhachis spp.). There are more than 1,300 described species recorded from Australia but this is probably about half the true number.

Excluded Taxa

Misidentifications

FORMICIDAE: Polyrhachis sericeopubescens Donisthorpe, 1941 — Kohout, R. 2012. A review of the Australian Polyrhachis ants of the subgenera Myrma Billberg, Myrmothrynax Forel and Polyrhachis Fr. Smith, with synonymic list of the species (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Formicinae). Memoirs of the Queensland Museum - Nature 56(1): 25-59 (with revision of species this is recognised as a New Guinea species)

General References

Bolton, B.B. 1995. A New General Catalogue of the Ants of the World. Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard Univ. Press 504 pp.

Holldobler, B. & Wilson, E.O. 1990. The Ants. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press xii 732 pp.

Schattuck, S.O. 1999. Australian Ants: Their Biology and Identification. Melbourne : CSIRO Publishing.

Ward, P.S. 2014. The phylogeny and evolution of ants. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 45: 23–43

Wilson, E.O. 1971. The Insect Societies. Cambridge, Massachusetts : Belknap Press 548 pp.

History of changes