Formicidae-Acknowledgements
            Funding for the ant work being done by the MEM in Alabama and Mississippi is from several sources including the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station at Mississippi State University, with support from State Project MIS-311080, NSF Grants BSR-9024810 and DFB-9200856, the Tombigbee National Forest (U.S. Forest Service), Mississippi Natural Heritage Program Research Grant, USDA Forest Service Agreement No. 08-99-07-CCS-010, the USDA-ARS Areawide Management of Imported Fire Ant Project, and the William H. Cross Expedition Fund. Special cooperation has been provided by State Parks, National Forests, National Wildlife Refuges, the Natchez Trace Parkway, and from various private landowners in both Alabama and Mississippi.
          Past and ongoing formicid survey work could would not have been possilbe without the aid of many individuals who have either collected ants or verified identifications. Thanks to the many individuals who have collected ants in this area, especially Richard Brown (Director of the MEM), Terence Schiefer (curator at MEM), JoVonn G. Hill (research associate at MEM), Jason Forster (former graduate student at Auburn University Entomological Museum, AL - studied ants of AL), James Trager (Shaw Nature Preserve, MO.), J. T. Vogt (USDA, Stoneville, MS), and Valerie Behan-Pelletier (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada). Thanks to Stefan Cover (Harvard University, MA), Mark Deyrup (Archbold Biological Station, FL), Lloyd Davis (Gainesville, FL), Mark DuBois (Illinois Central College), James C. Trager, Gary Umphrey (University of Guelph, Ontario, and Phil Ward (UC Davis) for verifying many of the species identifications.
          Drawings of ants for the keys were done by Joe MacGown using a drawing tube mounted on a Leica MZ16 stereomicroscope. Many of the photographs of ants were taken by MacGown with a Media Cybernetics Evolution MP color digital camera mounted on a Leica MZ12.5 microscope. Images were shot at different focus levels and then put together into single images with the use of Image Pro Plus software. Many additional photographs are used, with permission, from AntWeb, a web site about ants of the world with amazing photos.