I have questions about the concept of "Formicoid Myrmicine Ants" and "Formicoid Myrmeciinae Ants" ... isn't that just "anty anty ants" ?

Then you have "Formicoid Pseudomyrmecinae Ants" (So ant-shaped fake-ant ants) and "Formicoid
Formicinae Ants" also "ant-shaped anty ants"

I need latin help. This is as bad as bears.

@futurebird I would guess myrmicine ants are members of the subfamily Myrmicinae, and formicoids are members of the superfamily Formicoidea . That's how those suffixes usually work.

I guess I wonder how so many groups with distinctive features end up in multiple very similar kind of generic to the ant family names.

Myrmeciinae ants are very distinctive with their long mandibles and big eyes. "Formicoid Formicinae Ants" kind of makes sense as this contains most of the very typical ants that people think of when they think "ant"

@llewelly

There are too many words on here that have the root "ant"

@futurebird oh, I agree.

unfortunately it's a rather pervasive issue in taxonomy; see also this one for crocs and their relatives. Not only do you have Crocodylomorpha, Crocodyliformes, etc, but many groups also have "suchus" (crocodile) in their names!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodylomorpha#Phylogeny

@futurebird i gave up reading about early human evolution entirely not long after learning hominid, hominin and hominina were different things

@llewelly @futurebird i'm not too bothered by too many things all using roots with the same meaning

but could we just... differentiate the actual words being formed in this process...

@futurebird I am now realizing there is apparently both a Formicoid group of ant subfamilies , within Formicidae, and yet also a Formicoidea superfamily containing the family Formicidae ... that is extra confusing, given the usual abbreviation for a member of the superfamily Formicoidea would be Formicoid ... ugh.

@llewelly

There are two kinds of ants. Formicoid ants. Or Ant ants. And Poneriod ants... EVIL ants (cus they can sting and look like wasps kinda)

But then there are also the Secret Extra Ants, but there are not many of them. They are the sawflies of ants.

@Moss

... or ... and stay with me here. Maybe that would be AWESOME?

@llewelly

Poner means "evil"
Formi means "ant"
Myrma means "ant"
Dory means "spear" (as in what a member of an army would carry. So Dorylinae ants are army ants)
"Heteroponer" means "all kinds of different evil"
"Dolicho" means elongated (this makes some sense)
"Lepta" means "slender"
"Martialinae" mean "from mars" because this ant is so strange they had to rearrange the whole table for it.
The rest I don't know about.

@futurebird @Moss bad ass

@futurebird @Moss the deadly, terrifying MYRMARKTOS

@futurebird

Ok, so basically "formicoid" comes from the Latin word "formica" meaning "ant" and the Greek "-oid" which means "that which resembles/like". Formicinae happens to be a subfamily of Formicidae. Subfamilies within the Formicidae family all end in -inae.

And "myrmicine" is based off of the Myrmicinae subfamily of ants, while "myrmeciinae" is based of the Myrmeciinae subfamily. Both come from Greek "myrmex" meaning "ant". You'll notice that, although Myrmicine and Myrmeciinae sound similar, the latter is reserved to ants found in the Australian continent. So "pseudomyrmecinae" would be a subfamily of "false/pseudo" ants, or "ant-like false-ant ants".

Taxonomists tend to string together higher-level clade names with subfamily names that may sound redundant in English but carry a whole slightly different meaning in Latin and Greek. This is intended to be precise.

Any corrections and input welcome...

@untilted @futurebird i wonder how many i-don't-want-my-greek-and-latin-touching pedants "formicoid" must've pissed off

@untilted

I think this makes as much sense as anything I've read. This is very helpful. What if anything do you make of "agroecomyrmecinae" ? myrmecinae ants, but from ... from a field?

These are known as "armadillo ants" for what that is worth.

@futurebird @llewelly

My Little Poneriod

@burnitdown @llewelly

Eusociality is Magic.

@futurebird tagging @thatandromeda

@emjonaitis @futurebird i think we blame the Greeks for this one! Or the scientists

@thatandromeda @futurebird the scientists almost certainly deserve it, I mean, after naming a gene "sonic hedgehog" I'm surprised nobody's named some poor species "navicularis navisimilis" or the like

@emjonaitis @thatandromeda

I think part of what's happened with ants, is they have been around and classified for a long time. So, you can find the reasons why it's like this.

But I just long for clade and species names that illuminate, that are memorable.

I want to submit that calling an ant, "ant" in three different ways is not doing that.