List of ants of Great Britain

A few species, best exemplified by Lasius niger and Myrmica rubra, are truly cosmopolitan, colonising a great variety of different habitats (often including those directly resultant from human activities).

The variously differing biotopes afforded by parkland / partially wooded heath and larger traditional style gardens are also inhabited by a number of otherwise more heathland-pigeonholed species, such as Formica fusca/lemani, Lasius mixtus/umbratus and L. fuliginosus.

These include the well known wood ants, typified by the southerly inclined Formica rufa, and the more northerly F. lugubris and F. aquilonia.

These large, noticeable species abide in mounds constructed from leaf litter, which are still a common sight in many older forests and broken woodland up and down the country.

Stenamma species, Leptothorax acervorum and Temnothorax nylanderi can be found, locality permitting, under stones/logs and beneath loose bark respectively, in established woods.

The former habitat is also shared by the rather locally distributed Ponera coarctata, one of two unambiguously native British representatives of the subfamily Ponerinae.