Ant Species Identification

The ‘regional ant species‘ section can be a useful resource to help you identify ants species from the area that they were found.

Ant forums can also be useful for identifying specific ant species. As long as you have a good digital image, there are many helpful people on them that would love to help.

Here are a few alternative solutions to help you identify ant species:

AntWeb

If you think you know the scientific name of your specimen this site can be useful to check to see if it matches. GO.

Flickr

This is a very popular social photo sharing site. There is an ant group where people share and talk about their ant photos. GO.

Bug Guide

If you have an image of an ant or other insect that you would like identified, you may add it to this website to get feedback. You must be registered and logged in to participate. GO.

Myrmecos

This web site has a collection of breath taking ant photos shot by Alex Wild. They are categorized in a way that may help you find out your own ant species. GO.

Ecyclopedia of Life

This web site aims to be an information database for every single living organism on Earth. Founded by Edward O Wilson, ‘Lord of the Ants’ A fantastic site with lots of information GO.

Discover Life

This web site has a section where one can tick boxes according to the specimen collected. It then searches through its database  GO.

Bolton’s Catalogue of Ants of the World

Barry Bolton catalogues nearly 11,500 ant species in 23 subfamilies, with an additional 600 extinct species. This CD-ROM database is very easy to use due to its search features including: current species name, the original combination, higher taxonomic categories, validity, author, year, IUCN Red List status, and locality by country. GO. Amazon link.

Natural History Museum

This web site offers world wide species identification services for all insects. There is a free option to upload an image of the insect to a forum and to let people help choose the species, or a detailed identification where you have to send in your specimen this has to be paid for. Free link. Paid link.