Hello everyone,
I was wondering if someone knows any resource that could help me identifying ants found in Portugal. I believe there are no works with national scope for my country, so any resources for the Iberian Peninsula or for Europe would be quite useful. I could only find this list of works for the Iberian Peninsula, but I am searching for something that could help me with family/subfamily first, and work to the genus/species (most of the listed keys are either only for broad level ID or for very specific ID, like “key to X genus”).
Me and mettcollsuss do most universal ant IDs around now and can help. There’s a few people more experienced with European ants I’d trust like haplodiploid, veikkoyrjl, myrmecophil, max_devis. As for general resources on ants look at AntMaps, AntWeb, AntWiki, & AntCat. I always suggest simply trying over and over again for ID, after a while you just catch onto things (for example, do you have some observations you need ID’d right now I could help with? The more you see the more you’ll be able to recognize). You shouldn’t really ever need to key for genus/subfamily once you get used to them (and in fact I find that it almost always overcomplicates it – most genera have a relatively unique head shape, then things like antennal counts and such can be of help), but many taxa require detailed analysis of microscopic features like hair placement and count for species level ID.
@fffffffff@gabrif I’ve asked a couple of IDers that have identified my observations. The suggestions are usually the same as @Arman highlighted in his comment here
Thank you a lot for the reply (and for the IDs). I’m just getting started with the group, but following your advice I’ll keep posting my observations and trying to get familiar with the most common species in my region