List of ant subfamilies

They display a wide range of social behaviors, foraging habits and associations with other organisms, which has generated scientific and public interest.

[1] Beginning in the 1990s, molecular (DNA sequence) data have come to play a central role in attempts to reconstruct the ant "tree of life".

Molecular phylogenetic analyses based on multiple nuclear genes have yielded robust results that reinforce some preexisting views but overturn others – and suggest that there has been considerable morphological convergence among some ant lineages.

[4] Ants first arose during the mid-Cretaceous, more than 100 million years ago, associated with the rise of flowering plants and an increase in forest ground litter.

[5][8] In volume 1 of Systema Naturae, Carl Linnaeus (1758) described seventeen species of ants, all of which he placed in the single genus Formica.