A Guide to Ants of Britain and Europe

A few weeks ago I purchased a great little book called, Ants of Britain and Europe: A Photographic Guide. Co-authored by Claude Lebas, Christophe Galkowski, Rumsaïs Blatrix and Philippe Wegnez, it was published this year (2019) in Europe. However, it was actually first published in 2016, in French. A fantastic book, full of very helpful information, and many beautiful photographs. I am sure it will help the ant enthusiast to identify many ant species.

Yes, I have mentioned this book before in an earlier post, and on my Twitter feed. However, I am mentioning it again here as I wanted to inform you of a spreadsheet I have created using information from this book, and others. The spreadsheet is intended to aid you in identifying ant species of the UK and Europe.

I created the spreadsheet using Microsoft Excel, but I believe Apple’s “Numbers“, and the free spreadsheet found in Open Office. It contains information such as general description, habitats, “where to look”, diet, mating flight calendar, colony founding. Also included is whether the species is monogynous or polygynous. I am not able to include photographs from the book as that would be breaching copyright. On the subject of copyright; I don’t think I have breached copyright with the text of my spreadsheet. I have tried to put the information into my own words.

It took me several weeks to create the spreadsheet. I learned a lot about various European ant species, and identifying ants as I read through the book itself.

Where to download the guide

You can download my guide to ants of Britain and Europe spreadsheet either here or on the Species page of my site. Please use the spreadsheet for your own purposes, and please do not offer it up on your own sites. I have given credit to the authors and publisher.

Starting next week, and for future blog entries on this site, I plan to make new posts twice each week, certainly at least once. I aim to write a post updating the progress of my captive ant colonies every Monday. In addition to that, I hope to write an article about some aspect of ants, perhaps every Friday. Let’s see how it goes, and what time I have available to do this.

I hope you enjoy my guide to ants of Britain and Europe spreadsheet, and that you find it useful. I have checked the guide, as well as proof-read for typos, to the best I could. However, if you see any errors please do let me know.