Theodore Christian Schneirla (July 23, 1902, Bay City, Michigan — Aug. 20, 1968, New York, N.Y.) was an American animal psychologist who performed some of the first studies on the behavior patterns of army ants.

He made the first of eight trips to the Barro Colorado Island, Panama Canal Zone, to study the behavior of army ants in 1932.

In 1934 he reported that ants follow a particular pattern when moving into new territory and that raids by these insects peak once during the morning and again in the afternoon.

In 1943 Schneirla became associate curator of the Department of Animal Behavior at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City.

Six of his publications are directly devoted to the application of the concept of integrative levels to comparative psychology and social organization.