Global: Introduced

Introduced Ants

Eli Sarnat, Andy Saurez & Brian Fisher

Of the nearly 14,000 described species of ants, over 200 have established populations outside of their native range. Some of these have become highly destructive invaders. In addition to being economically costly in both urban and agricultural areas, invasive ants can modify ecosystems by reducing native ant diversity, negatively affect vertebrate populations, and disrupt ant-plant mutualisms. However, for most introduced ants we know little about their impacts and less about their biology; we often don't even know where they are from. The goals of the introduced ant page on antweb.org is to collate information on where introduced ants are found, and help provide taxonomic resources for introduced ants. Ultimately, we hope this site will provide information on 1) biogeographic patterns of invasion including the identification of regions that may either produce many invaders or be particularly prone to invasion, and 2) taxonomic perspectives on invasion success. Here we provide a list of introduced ants, that is those ants known to have established populations outside their native range. A far greater number of species have been intercepted at ports of entry but have not become established (see Port of Entry ants).

Eli Sarnat provides a key to the Introduced ants of North America.

Ben Hoffman provides a key to the key to separate introduced ants species from Australian native ant species.

If you have new records of ant introductions, please send the collection information to ndemik@yahoo.com.

Species list updated 6/13/2012