Family FORMICIDAE
Compiler and date details
S.O. Shattuck, CSIRO Entomology, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia; new species of Camponotus added by ABRS, 2008
Introduction
Ants are found everywhere in Australia, from the centre of the largest cities to the most remote outback locations, from coastal mangroves to the highest peaks of the Australian Alps. And they are hardly shy. They readily live in gardens and city parks and will even live indoors in potted plants or crevices in walls. Nests can be huge with tens of thousands of workers and extensive mounds, or small with only a handful of workers clustered together in small cavities between rocks or inside twigs. At the same time, some ants are among the rarest invertebrates in Australia. Numerous species have been encountered fewer than 10 times, and several have been found only once and are known from only one or two specimens.
The ant fauna of Australia is especially large and diverse. Australia is currently known to have representatives of 10 of the world's 16 subfamilies, 103 of the 300 or so genera and 1275 of the about 15,000 described species and subspecies. While the numbers of Australian subfamilies and genera are unlikely to increase significantly, the number of species may well double as species-level studies are completed. Thus Australia currently has representatives of two-thirds of the world's ant subfamilies, one-third of its genera and, as far as we know, about 15% of its species. A few of the genera found in Australia occur nowhere else, and many are shared with only its closest neighbours. Most of the species, however, are limited to Australia with only a minority occurring in both Australia and neighbouring regions.
There is an extensive literature concerning all aspects of ant biology, ecology and taxonomy. One of the most significant is of these is Hölldobler and Wilson (1990). This large tome is a very complete and up to date summary of our knowledge of ants. The taxonomy and classification of ants have been discussed extensively by Bolton (1994, 1995).
For the Australian fauna, the earlier checklist by Taylor & Brown (1985) is important. Taylor also presented an overview of the entire Australian fauna in Naumann (1991). Finally, Shattuck (1999) provided a guide to and an overview of the Australian fauna at the generic level; and McArthur (2007) provided a key to Australian Camponotus species.
General References
Bolton, B. 1994. Identification Guide to the Ant Genera of the World. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard Univ. Press 222 pp.
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.
McArthur, A.J. 2007. A key to Camponotus Mayr of Australia. 290-351 in Snelling, R.R., Fisher, B.L. & Ward, P.S. (eds). Advances in Ant Systematics (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): homage to E.O. Wilson — 50 years of contributions. Memoirs of the American Entomological Institute 80
Naumann, I.D. 1991. The Insects of Australia. Carlton, Vic. : Univ. of Melbourne 1137 pp.
Shattuck, S.O. 1999. Australian ants: their biology and identification. Monographs on Invertebrate Taxonomy 3: 1-226
Taylor, R.W. & Brown, D.R. 1985. Hymenoptera: Formicoidea. pp. 1-149 in Walton, D.W. (ed.). Zoological Catalogue of Australia: Formicoidea, Vespoidea and Sphecoidea. Canberra : Australian Government Publishing Service vi + 381 pp.