A taxonomic Ant Picturebase of Asia and Europe

A virtual museum of ants (Formicidae) of Malaysia, Mongolia and Germany. 496 ant species (94 genera) are shown in high resolution pictures, 16 posters on Asian ants are currently in our poster exhibition, and we have many more interesting information on ants.

Polyrhachis phalerata Odontomachus Tetraponera rufonigra Oecophylla smaragdina Leptogenys 1 Solenopsis geminata

Dear Reader

Welcome to the kingdom of ants! These pages present an overview on the biodiversity of one of the most important insects groups. Primarily developed for the use by scientists antbase.net offers beautiful ant pictures for every interested reader.

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Ants as Friends: Insect Pest Management on Tree Crops with Weaver Ants

Dr Paul Van Mele, technology transfer specialist at WARDA, and Dr Nguyen Thi Thu Cuc, an entomologist at the Cantho University, have written a book that provides practical tips to make optimal use of the beneficial weaver ant, based on improved insights of underlying ecological principles. They combined the rich sources of scientific and farmers’ knowledge into an attractive and colorful manual. It will appeal in particular to university students, NGO workers, extension staff and all those engaged in communicating science to farmers. You can download the book in three different languages directly from our website!
Read more about it...

Ants as Food: Weaver Ants on the table

In many countries of South East Asia weaver ants are harvested as a source of high protein food and as cure against diseases. The tradition of eating ants is most prominent among people in Thailand. A recent study of Sribandit et al. published in ASIAN MYRMECOLOGY assesses the socio-economic significance of ant harvesting and evaluates its sustainability. Read more about the weaver ant harvest in Thailand.
Download PDF

Take a guided tour to www.antbase.net

Follow us into the fascinating world of the ants and the breathtaking biodiversity of the antfauna of Borneo. If you are new to this website and if you want to know more about our website and what it has to offer, have a look at our guided tour. If you are already familiar with our webiste - or if you just want to get an impression of the beauty of ants - just have a look at our photo gallery.
Enjoy our website and have fun!

Newly discovered subfamily Martialinae Rabeling & Verhaagh 2008 represents the sister lineage to all extant ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

A new species of blind, subterranean, predatory ant, Martialis heureka, was discovered in the Amazon by Christian Rabeling (The University of Texas, Austin) and Manfred Verhaagh (Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Karlsruhe) in the leaf litter of the Amazon rainforest near Manaus, Brasil. It belongs to the first new subfamily of living ants discovered since 1923, the Martialinae Rabeling & Verhaagh 2008, and is a descendant of one of the first ant lineages to evolve over 120 million years ago.
Our hearty congratulations go to the lucky researchers!
Read more and have a look at the pictures...

The Ants of Southeast Asia

This website is dedicated to the ants of Poring, Kinabalu National Park, Sabah, Malaysia, a tropical rainforest with the world's highest ant diversity: 642 species of ants from 81 genera and 8 subfamilies of the Formicidae have been found there. In our virtual museum of natural history you find pictures of Aenictinae, Cerapachyinae, Dorylinae, Dolichoderinae, Formicinae, Myrmicinae, Ponerinae, and Pseudomyrmecinae.
Have a look...

Ants of Germany

Dr. Bernhard Seifert of the "Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Görlitz" is one of the best known German ant researchers. In Antbase.net he shows pictures of the most important ant species of Germany from this famous book: "Ameisen: beobachten, bestimmen" (Naturbuchverlag).
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Ants of Mongolia

Mongolian ants are hardly studied. Here we present the most important species. These ants live in the deserts and steppes of Central Asia.
GO!

last update: 02.07.2009

© 2003-2009. Martin Pfeiffer. University of Ulm.
Designed and maintained by Martin Pfeiffer, Department of Experimental Ecology

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