New Ant Species Discovered in Philippines

About 40 new species of ants have been discovered in the Philippines, ant researcher David General and his colleagues recently announced.

The previously unknown species belong to 11 different genera, the taxonomic classification above species. That brings the total genera (the plural of genus) found in the country to 92, which is nearly a third of the total described worldwide.

General and colleagues conducted their collections at a reforested study site in 2003 and 2004 on Luzon Island. Trees here had been cut down to grow corn 27 years before, but the area had already recovered its populations of native ants when the team visited, he said. When General returned in 2009, though, all the trees in the area had been cut down and removed again, even the stumps. "It's like I was in the wrong place," he said.

This individual species have yet to be named and described.