The generic name is a combination of two words; priono derives from Greek word priōn, meaning "a saw", and myrmex, another Greek word, means "ant" [REF].
The following cladogram generated by Archibald and colleagues shows the possible phylogenetic position of Prionomyrmex among some ants of the subfamily Myrmeciinae; note that P. wappleri is absent, as the generated cladogram below was created in 2006 while the species itself was described in 2012 [REF].