 In volume 1 of "Systema Naturae", Linnaeus (1758) described seventeen species of ants, all of which he placed in the single genus "Formica".Within a few decades additional genera had been recognized, and this trend continued in the ensuing years, together with the development of a more complex hierarchical classification in which genera were apportioned among subfamilies and tribes.The ant species described by Linnaeus are now dispersed in eleven different genera, belonging to four subfamilies.