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Tales from the Ant World
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About This Book
Edward O. Wilson recalls his lifetime with ants, from his first boyhood encounters in the woods of Alabama to perilous journeys into the Brazilian rainforest. "Ants are the most warlike of all animals, with colony pitted against colony," writes E.O. Wilson, one of the world's most beloved scientists, "their clashes dwarf Waterloo and Gettysburg." In Tales from the Ant World, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Wilson takes us on a myrmecological tour to such far-flung destinations as Mozambique and New Guinea, the Gulf of Mexico's Dauphin Island and even his parent's overgrown backyard, thrillingly relating his nine-decade-long scientific obsession with over 15,000 ant species. Animating his scientific observations with illuminating personal stories, Wilson hones in on twenty-five ant species to explain how these genetically superior creatures talk, smell, and taste, and more significantly, how they fight to determine who is dominant. Wryly observing that "males are little more than flying sperm missiles" or that ants send their "little old ladies into battle," Wilson eloquently relays his brushes with fire, army, and leafcutter ants, as well as more exotic species. Among them are the very rare Matabele, Africa's fiercest warrior ants, whose female hunters can carry up to fifteen termites in their jaw (and, as Wilson reports from personal experience, have an incredibly painful stinger); Costa Rica's Basiceros, the slowest of all ants; and New Caledonia's Bull Ants, the most endangered of them all, which Wilson discovered in 2011 after over twenty years of presumed extinction. Richly illustrated throughout with depictions of ant species by Kristen Orr, as well as photos from Wilsons' expeditions throughout the world, Tales from the Ant World is a fascinating, if not occasionally hair-raising, personal account by one of our greatest scientists and a necessary volume for any lover of the natural world.
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Reviews
"full of just such amazement, most of it presented with the infectious enthusiasm that only a life-long teacher and popularizer like Wilson could muster."
"his explanations of ant 'gender' (most scientists would grant to insects only 'sex') and raiding behavior make for exciting reading."
"With characteristic passion and humor, Wilson regales us with Tales From the Ant World, combining memoir and scientific discovery into a spellbinding narrative of his lifelong devotion to myrmecology, the study of ants ..."
"Though infectiously enthusiastic about ants, Wilson is no sentimentalist; he warns that nothing about an ant's life provides moral uplift ..."
"Wilson wants to inspire both adults and children to see the adventurous side of studying ants, how they communicate with one another, and how we communicate with them ..."
"Wilson's passion for his subject, for the scientific method, and for the natural world comes through clearly in this enjoyable survey."
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