Largest genus of ant

The largest genus of ants is Pheidole, which in 2014 contained 1,002 species, but with new ones being discovered on a regular basis. It is believed to have originally evolved in the New World, from where its species have spread across the globe, and it is now a very ecologically dominant ant genus. Pheidole species are commonly known as big-headed ants, because workers belonging to the soldier caste in these ants have disproportionately huge heads and jaws.

Readily demonstrating how frequently new species of Pheidole ant are discovered and described, in 2003 Harvard University entomologist Prof. E. O. Wilson published the most comprehensive documentation of this genus ever prepared, a 794-page book in which he diagnosed 624 species, including no less than 337 that were new to science. Just 11 years later, in 2014, that total number had almost doubled.