Introduction to PIAkey

PIAkey (Pacific Invasive Ant key) is an electronic guide designed to assist users to identify invasive ant species commonly encountered in the Pacific Island region. The guide covers four subfamilies, 20 genera and 44 species.

The primary tool offered by PIAkey is an interactive key designed using Lucid3 software. In addition to being fully illustrated, the Lucid key allows users to enter at multiple character points, skip unknown characters, and find the most efficient path for identifying the available taxa. Each species is linked to its own web page. These species pages, or factsheets, are linked to an illustrated glossary of morphological terms, and include the following seven sections:

• Overview of the species
• Diagnostic chart illustrating a unique combination of identification characters
• Comparison chart illustrating differences among species of similar appearance
• Video clip of the species behavior at food baits (where available)
• Image gallery that includes original specimen images and live images (where available)
• Nomenclature section detailing the taxonomic history of the species
• Links and references section for additional literature and online resources