Ants are major contributors to ecological processes including soil development, nutrient cycling, and seed dispersal in the northeastern US and around the world. However, distributions of these influential invertebrates in the inland Pitch Pine barrens of New York State are poorly understood. I used quadrat searches and pitfall traps to systematically sample ant assemblages along transects in open habitats at 3 of these inland barrens. My results demonstrate that (1) inland Pitch Pine barrens in New York support high ant-species density, including rare species; (2) as in other regions, shrubland habitats appear to support higher ant-species density than grassland habitats in the Northeast; and (3) shrubland and grassland ant-assemblages in these barrens are compositionally distinct.