Mississippi Entomological Museum, Ants (Formicidae) of the Southeastern United States

Exotic Ants of Tennessee [Tennessee Ants] [Tennessee Pest Ants]
Joe MacGown

Currently, only 9 exotic species (plus the hybrid fire ant, Solenopsis invicta x richteri) are known to occur in Tennessee. The exotic ants listed below are thought to have originated from a variety of regions including Central and South America, Europe, and Africa (Deyrup et al. (2000).

Clicking on a species name will lead to a page with further information and photographs of that species. Although species pages are at various levels of progress, most pages now have representative photographs of at least workers of the species. In addition to the photographs of ants taken by Joe MacGown at the Mississippi Entomological Museum (MEM), many photos are used, with permission, from AntWeb, a web site about ants of the world with amazing photos. Another site with photographs of ants is "Discover Life." The Discover Life site provides a list of North American ants with photos at "Kinds of Ants , Ants of North America Page". On each individual MEM species page, a link is provided (at the bottom of the page) for that species on both the AntWeb site and the Discover Life ant site. Additionally, many of the species found in this list can be identified using the identification keys found on this web site.

Exotic Ants of Tennessee (arranged alphabetically)

Brachymyrmex patagonicus Mayr (introduced-Argentina, Neotropics, pest)
Brachyponera chinensis (Emery) (introduced-China, Japan, pest)
Linepithema humile (Mayr) (introduced-Argentina, pest)
Monomorium destructor (Jerdon) (introduced-Old World Tropics-Africa or India?, pest)
Monomorium pharaonis (Linnaeus) (introduced-Africa?, pest)
Nylanderia vividula (Nylander) (introduced?- Europe?, nuisance pest)
Solenopsis invicta Buren (introduced-Brazil, pest)
Solenopsis invicta x richteri (introduced, pest)
Solenopsis richteri Forel (introduced-Argentina, pest)
Tetramorium immigrans Santschi (introduced-?, pest)

Literature Cited

Deyrup, M., S. Cover, and L. Davis. 2000. Exotic ants in Florida. Transactions of the American Entomological Society 126 293-325.

Author-Joe MacGown: jmacgown@entomology.msstate.edu
The ant web site was uploaded on 6 March 2003 and was last updated on 7 February 2022 (specific pages may have different uploaded and updated dates)
Drawings and photographs by Joe MacGown (unless otherwise noted) and copyrighted by the Mississippi Entomological Museum

The development of this web site was supported in part by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture, under Project No. MIS-012040 and the USDA-ARS Areawide Management of Imported Fire Ant Project (Richard L. Brown, Principal Investigator).