Tetramorium atratulum is a rare workerless socially parasitic ant from the Palaearctic region, which has even been introduced together with its host in North America. This extreme inquiline is represented only by female and pupoid type male individuals, whose morphology and anatomy indicate a highly specialized level of parasitism. The body of males is depigmentated, the cuticle is thin, the petiole and postpetiole are widely connected, and degenerate mandibles, palps, and antennae are observed. Female wing venation is reduced and the occipital region is narrowed. Mature females are typically physogastric and found in queenless host nests.
Myrmica is a genus of ants within the subfamily Myrmicinae. It is widespread throughout the temperate regions of the Holarctic and high mountains in Southeast Asia.
Barry Bolton is an English myrmecologist, an expert on the classification, systematics, and taxonomy of ants, who long worked at the Natural History Museum, London. He is known especially for monographs on African and Asian ants, and for encyclopaedic global works, including the Identification Guide to Ant Genera (1994), A New General Catalogue of Ants of the World, Synopsis and Classification of Formicidae (2003), and Bolton's Catalogue of Ants of the World: 1758-2005 (2007). Now retired, Bolton is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society and Myrmecologist, Biodiversity Division, Department of Entomology, Natural History Museum, London.
Harpagoxenus sublaevis is a species of ant in the subfamily Myrmicinae. It is found in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland.
Leptothorax is a genus of small ants with mainly Holarctic distributions. The genus is notable for its widespread social parasitism, i.e. they are dependent on the help of workers from other ant species during a part or the whole of their life cycles.
Leptothorax recedens is a species of ant in the family Formicidae. It is found in France, Italy, and Spain, with the most recent finding in Slovenia.
Monomorium is a genus of ants in the subfamily Myrmicinae. As of 2013 it contains about 396 species. It is distributed around the world, with many species native to the Old World tropics. It is considered to be "one of the more important groups of ants," considering its widespread distribution, its diversity, and its variety of morphological and biological characteristics. It also includes several familiar pest species, such as the pharaoh ant and the flower ant.
Myrmoxenus is a genus of ants in the subfamily Myrmicinae. The genus was synonymized under Temnothorax by Ward et al. (2015), but the change was not accepted by Heinze et al. (2015) due to insufficient available data.
Tetramorium inquilinum is an ectoparasitic ant found in Europe. It was discovered by Swiss myrmecologist Heinrich Kutter. The species is unusual for lacking a worker caste, the queens and males living entirely off the care of the pavement ant. It has been called "the 'ultimate' parasitic ant" by myrmecologists Edward O. Wilson and Bert Hölldobler.
Leptothorax athabasca has been discovered and described by Buschinger, A. & Schulz, A. in 2008. It is endemic to the area around Athabasca Falls in Alberta, Canada.
Leptothorax acervorum is a small brown to yellow ant in the subfamily Myrmicinae. It was first described by Johan Christian Fabricius in 1793. L. acervorum is vastly distributed across the globe, most commonly found in the coniferous forests of Central, Western and Northern Europe. The morphology of L. acervorum is extremely similar to that of other Leptothorax ants. The difference arises in the two-toned appearance of L. acervorum, with the head and metasoma being darker than the mesosoma segment of the body, and hair across its body. Following Bergmann's rule—unusually, for ectothermic animals—body size increases with latitude.
Agroecomyrmecinae is a subfamily of ants containing two extant and two fossil genera. The subfamily was originally classified in 1930 by Carpenter as Agroecomyrmecini, a Myrmicinae tribe. Bolton raised the tribe to subfamily status in 2003, suggesting that Agroecomyrmecinae might be the sister taxon to Myrmicinae. It has since been discovered to be one of the earliest lineages of ants, a clade from the basal polytomy for all ants. In 2014, the subfamily was expanded to two tribes. The tribe Ankylomyrmini was moved from the subfamily Myrmicinae to Agroemyrmecinae.
Temnothorax is a genus of ants in the subfamily Myrmicinae. It contains more than 380 species.
Iberoformica is a small genus of ants in the subfamily Formicinae.
Slave-making ants or slaver ants are brood parasites that capture broods of other ant species to increase the worker force of their colony. After emerging in the slave-maker nest, slave workers work as if they were in their own colony, while parasite workers only concentrate on replenishing the labor force from neighboring host nests, a process called slave raiding.
Malagidris is a Malagasy genus of ants in the subfamily Myrmicinae. Described in 2014, the genus contains six species.
Temnothorax nylanderi is a species of ant in the genus Temnothorax. The species is found in western Europe. It was first described by Förster (1850) based on a male from Germany.
Leptothorax muscorum is a species of ant of the genus Leptothorax that ranges through a variety of habitats throughout much of Europe, northern Asia, and North and Central America, with a particularly wide distribution in the palearctic. Capable of surviving in extreme Arctic-Alpine conditions, the species is perhaps the northernmost dwelling ant indigenous to the Western Hemisphere.
Temnothorax corsicus is a socially parasitic ant species known from Southern Europe, more specifically from Italy, France and Croatia. It is a workerless social parasite of the ant Temnothorax exilis in the same genus. It is most closely related to Temnothorax adlerzi, a species from Greece with a very similar life cycle.
