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Ants: Phylogeny and Classification

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Encyclopedia of Social Insects

Ants are the most ubiquitous and ecologically dominant insects on the face of our Earth. This is believed to be due in large part to the cooperation allowed by their sociality. At the time of writing, about 13,500 ant species are described and named, classified into 334 genera that make up 17 subfamilies (Fig. 1). This diversity makes the ants the world’s by far the most speciose group of eusocial insects, but ants are not only diverse in terms of numbers of species. They exhibit an amazing diversity of form and function exemplified by a number of charismatic taxonomic or functional groups known as army ants, trap-jaw ants, turtle ants, fungus-growing ants, exploding ants, and socially parasiticants, to only name a few. Taxonomic and phylogenetic research helps to discover, describe, and organize the diversity of organisms, as well as to reveal their evolutionary histories. The timeline of modern zoological nomenclature officially begins in 1758 when the Swedish botanist Carl von...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA

    Marek L. Borowiec

  2. Departments of Entomology and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Corrie S. Moreau

  3. Social Insect Research Group, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Christian Rabeling

Authors
  1. Marek L. Borowiec
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  2. Corrie S. Moreau
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  3. Christian Rabeling
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Marek L. Borowiec or Christian Rabeling .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Caura Village, Trinidad and Tobago

    Christopher K. Starr

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Borowiec, M.L., Moreau, C.S., Rabeling, C. (2020). Ants: Phylogeny and Classification. In: Starr, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Social Insects. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90306-4_155-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90306-4_155-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90306-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-90306-4

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