Pheidole megacephala

Pheidole megacephala
Dorsal view of a minor worker big-headed ant
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Formicidae
Subfamily: Myrmicinae
Genus: Pheidole
Species:
P. megacephala
Binomial name
Pheidole megacephala
(Fabricius, 1793)
Synonyms

Atta testacea Smith 1858
Formica edax Forskal 1775
Myrmica laevigata F. Smith
Myrmica suspiciosa Smith 1859
Myrmica trinodis Losana 1834
Oecophthora perniciosa Gerstacker 1859
Oecophthora pusilla Heer 1852
Pheidole janus F. Smith
Pheidole laevigata Mayr [1]

Pheidole megacephala is a species of ant in the subfamily Myrmicinae. It is commonly known as the big-headed ant in the US and the coastal brown ant in Australia. It is a very successful invasive species and is considered a danger to native ants in Australia[2] and other places. It is regarded as one of the world's worst invasive ant species.[3]

  1. ^ "Global Invasive Species Database". Archived from the original on 2014-03-22. Retrieved 2010-12-22.
  2. ^ Hoffmann, Benjamin D.; Parr, Catherine L. (2008). "An invasion revisited: The African big-headed ant (Pheidole megacephala) in northern Australia". Biological Invasions. 10 (7): 1171–1181. doi:10.1007/s10530-007-9194-x. S2CID 2155600.
  3. ^ Pheidole megacephala. Global Invasive Species Database, 3 Aug 2011 (archived)