Most well known for its invasive fire ants such as the red imported fire ant Solenopsis invicta, the Solenopsis genus has long been a taxonomic nightmare due to difficulties in morphological separation and lack of genetics research. This molecular phylogeny analysis assessed the genetic relatedness of species within the molesta species complex and its subgroups (molesta, tenuis, pollux) as described by Pacheco an Mackay (2013). Using DNA Barcode sequences of the mitochondrial COI gene, a guide tree of species within the species complex as well as a phylogenetic tree of 55 total New World thief ant species was made. There was a clear low level of similarity between species within the subgroups of the molesta complex seen from the pairwise sequence alignments. The guide tree of the species complex also showed no clade formation for each subgroup, with species being scattered across the tree. Analyzing the phylogenetic tree of New World thief ants showed a lack of clade formation of the complex and subgroups as well. These results suggest that the morphological based subtaxa molesta species complex proposed by Pacheco and Mackay (2013) is not supported by molecular phylogenetic analysis, which has been a common theme of recent research into Solenopsis systematics. However, more studies should be conducted in order to further investigate the relationship genetic and morphological analysis of thief ants in order to help future efforts in revising Solenopsis systematics once again.
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