The diversity of soil arthropods is of great importance for the functioning of ecosystems. Ants play particularly important roles in dry habitats as are frequent in South Africa where they fulfill roles similar to those of earthworms in wetter climates. Furthermore ants are important roles as seed dispersers and through other interactions with a wide range of local species. It is therefore essential to assess the diversity and distribution of ants in these habitats. In a first step this project contributes to a consortium effort reviewing the present knowledge on a range of soil-dwelling taxa in South Africa. In a second step records of species distributions and new descriptions will be analysed regarding their distance from population centres and research institutions or other factors over time. South African ant research has a long history reaching back to early amateur naturalists collaborating with European ant taxonomist to modern large scale monitoring projects. Modelling these separate phases will contibute insights in what influences the distributions of records in presence only datasets from emerging economies.