Formica tarsata Fabricius, 1798 (type species of Paltothyreus) Paltothyreus (also known as African stink ant) is a monotypic genus of ants in the subfamily Ponerinae.

[1] Paltothyreus tarsatus, the single described species, is widely distributed in Sub-Saharan Africa.

[2] Paltothyreus tarsatus construct shallow nests that cover a large home range.

[3] The nests can have as many as 5000 workers, a number very few ant species are able to match.

Although the ants are predators and feed on animals as large as beetles, the frog Phrynomantis microps is sometimes found inside the nests as it uses them as a burrow.